Operation Prankster
by Chris Oddland
Summary: What happens if the stress really gets to Shinji Ikari? And how will our meek hero handle it? This is an AU fic that takes place after the 12th Angel.
1. Mission: 00

Disclaimer: I don't own Neon Genesis Evangelion.

This takes place before the appearance of the 13th Angel.

--

**Operation Prankster**

_Mission: 00_

_Operation Kraut Control_

--

_The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge._

_Edgar Allan Poe_

_The Cask of Amontillado_

The life of Shinji Rokubungi Ikari wasn't a pleasant one.

He was already 14 years old with a lot of psychological problems and his father (whom he hadn't had contact with for a long time) decided it was time that he became the pilot of something big and purple with a large horn on its snout called an Evangelion.

A lot of mecha-fanatics would probably envy him for being the pilot of Eva 01. Shinji deemed these mecha-fans as utter morons who should get a life. It was true that the boy/girl piloting a giant mecha and saving the world had become a cliché in anime and mangas in Japan. How he would have loved to barge into an office of a guy scripting mecha stories and tell that he couldn't possibly understand how psychologically stressing the pressure of responsibility being placed in the hands of a young boy is. And how suicidal it really is to place said boy in a giant mecha without having any experience of how to pilot and having no combat experience whatsoever. A lot of times when he had fought some of the Angels he had experienced severe shellshocks which he had a hard time recovering from.

Deciding that he didn't exactly want to do chores after school in Misato's apartment and handling Asuka Sohryu Langley at the same time, he went to empty-looking alley (after being finished with school and avoiding Asuka) and found a Section Two Agent who was busy reading a newspaper and lazing off on his job.

Shinji had asked for permission to venture to someplace in the outskirts of Tokyo 3 under Section Two supervision in case of emergencies. And after confirmation from NERV headquarters, he was allowed to go out accompanied by two Section Two personnel.

He was back at the place where he had met Kensuke Aida after running away. Kensuke had been camping and playing around as some sort of soldier, even dressed in teenager-sized camo and wearing a helmet to boot.

Being outside, away from his responsibilities soothed him a little and made his soul feel a little at peace. He enjoyed the almost quiet tranquillity of nature, hearing but the sounds of various animals and the chirping of crickets and other insects.

"Don't think about running away again, kid," One of the agents warned him jokingly, "or else we'll find you, beat you up, tie you so tight that you'll have trouble moving and ship you back."

"I won't." was the almost quiet answer coming from the Third Child. He knew that two men behind him were only doing what they were paid to do and didn't harbour any malice towards them for that.

Just like him they were but the small cogs in a large machine, controlled and maintained by his father. Like him they had to be subservient to him and follow any command given.

"Do you even know how hard it was to find you at all that time?" the other agent added.

"No?" was Shinji's answer.

"To be blunt - it was very hard and straining to find you."

"Oh?"

"But it didn't surprise me at all that you ran away. Captain Katsuragi sure is a beer-guzzling slob, isn't she?"

"You have no idea," Shinji sighed, "and me of all people have to live with her (and not to mention clean and cook to boot)."

"I feel sorry for you. And on top of that you have to deal with that Eurasian Nazi bitch from hell on a daily basis even when you're at home."

"Eurasian?" Shinji said, feeling a little confused.

"It's a term for people of both European and Asian descent," the agent explained.

"Oh." Was all Shinji said. He knew that Asuka on the surface looked more Caucasian than Asian, having red hair and blue eyes, but if he looked closer he could see some of her Asian facial traits. It was a little strange that Asuka had a Japanese name even though she was born and raised in Germany and even stranger that she had closer ties with her German roots than her Japanese ones, despite having a Japanese name.

Normally he just went under his normal name Shinji Ikari, but ironically since his father's surname had been Rokubungi before marrying his mother, he found out later at Nerv that he was registered as Shinji "Rokubungi" Ikari in some of the sub-archives. And that had really been one hell of a big shock to him when he found out about it.

"It's funny that Nerv doesn't seem to have any psychiatric clinics." Was the ironic comment coming from one of the agents.

"Maybe the budget was too tight?" the other one joked.

Shinji turned around, looking at them meekly. "Let's just go back now."

"Fine with me, kid."

**XoX**

The car ride back had been quiet. None of the three occupants inside the black Volvo spoke a word to one another during the entire ride.

The two agents dropped Shinji by Misato's apartment and drove away.

"Why in the world did you buy a Volvo?" the agent frowned at the one driving.

"Because it's a solid and dependable Swedish car," the other one said nonchalantly without turning his head.

"Oh?" the other one replied, "Okay then."

They drove on.

**XoX**

"Warum muss ich immer auf dieser blödmann warten!" Asuka ranted in German, her Berlin dialect clear to most people knowing German. She was hungry and wanted Shinji to cook dinner for them.

Misato just shrugged as Asuka began swearing in German. After all she had lived in Germany for a while. (Die Deutschen spinnen.) she thought in German and continued reading one of the worn German translated Asterix comics she had bought in her youth in Germany while sipping her beer. She chuckled when she saw Obelix Having the time of his life whacking the poor Roman legions that got in his way.

"I'm home!" a timid voice called out as the apartment door slid open and Shinji stepped in. (Another day of slave labour as usual.) Shinji thought, feeling very sorry for himself. While he had managed to handle the fact that he had to do almost all the chores every day in the week and clean up after Misato (as usual), it became increasingly worse with Asuka and her usual tantrums and behaviour when she as well moved in with the drunkard Major who had been promoted a while ago.

"There you are!" Asuka shouted at him, making him cringe and twitch slightly in fear. "Where have you been?" she demanded.

"J-just outside Tokyo 3 a-a-a l-lit-ttle." Shinji managed to blurt out hoping that she wouldn't dish out any physical punishment upon him.

Fortunately this time Asuka didn't hit him, but the bad news was that she decided to verbally abuse him as usual. Luckily he didn't understand the German sentences she hurled at him with the aggressiveness of a woman brutally trying to lovingly kill her husband with a dull kitchen knife while simultaneously trying to drown him in the kitchen sink.

Minutes later Shinji found himself in front of the kitchen counter, wearing an apron over his school uniform, preparing dinner for Asuka, Misato and himself.

Shinji was really considering if he should put arsenic in the food which he served Asuka if she ever took her superiority complex to such extremes that even most of the technicians in Nerv couldn't stand her.

His thoughts about Asuka waned as he continued cutting the vegetables with the kitchen knife after having washed them with the kitchen sink faucet. As hard as he tried he could not get himself to forget the horrible incident that happened when he was captured by the Twelfth Angel when he for the first time had built up enough self-confidence as an Evangelion pilot - and how that same self-confidence almost cost him his life when he made that rash move to open fire on the orb-like entity with the giant handgun Nerv had issued him for this battle instead of the Pallet Rifle he had trained with all those weeks. Then came the shock and horror as he was slowly engulfed by darkness, feeling that he was being swallowed up by the very earth itself as he struggled against it. In the end it proved as futile as trying to withstand a raging whirlpool slowly drawing him to his death as he struggled with all his might. The fear that engulfed him when communication with Nerv broke off and finding himself stranded in a vast space empty of life.

He didn't want to remember any of it. How he almost died all alone in that empty space as the Evangelion slowly ran out of energy before going berserk and tearing the Angel asunder from the inside in a desperate attempt to break free.

He sighed sadly as he continued preparing the meal. He then heard that Asuka was talking the Hikari the class representative in his school class. He also heard that Asuka was mentioning him, and all that she said wasn't exactly flattering.

**XoX**

Asuka sighed in content as she turned on the shower and let the warm water soak her body. She then picked up her personal bottle of shampoo from where it lay and poured its content upon her red hair. As she began to scrub her hair she let her fingers glide over her red tresses in satisfaction. For what seemed to be an eternity she let her hands rest on the top of her head onto her hair. But when she finally decided to remove said hands she found herself incapable of doing so since her hands were for some reason stuck to her hair.

She began growling in German as she struggled to remove her hands, feeling twinges of pain as parts of her hair was brutally torn off when she aggressively moved her hands.

"Was zum Teufel ist hier los?" she exclaimed angrily and crashed down on the floor as she tried to leave the bathtub, tearing down the shower curtain as well.

"Aua!"

**XoX**

"Do you know what's happening?" Misato asked Shinji as she sipped her opened Yebisu beer can while sitting on her chair while her legs lay on the dinner table.

"No." Shinji lied while feeling a sense of satisfaction of avenging the wrong committed by Asuka.

The only advantage of being the one forced to clean the apartment most of the time was that he learned a thing or two about the favourite shampoo labels Misato and Asuka preferred and their taste in clothes.

Watching the pre-Second Impact Police Academy films had been inspiring in a strange way. And the quick-drying glue-in-the-shampoo-bottle-gag had actually worked in real life.

"I think you've got to go over to Asuka and see what's the matter with her," Shinji advised his inept guardian as she let out her trademark Misato scream/shriek™ after guzzling the contents of her beer can.

Shinji retreated into the small space that was his room. Ironically on the moment Asuka had arrived in Misato's apartment, she had occupied his old room and had carelessly thrown out his stuff in a cardboard box. He hadn't any emotional attachments to his old room, but the thought of being thrown out without any warning and being forced to live in very cramped space now while being burdened with numerous chores every day and sudden synchronization tests when he was supposed to prepare for a test at school was getting very, very stressing.

He dressed himself in some pyjamas and placed the earphones of his walkman into his ear and afterwards pressed the play button as he lay himself down, pulling the covers over his torso.

_I am...I'm me..._ He heard Twisted Sister play on the old cassette.

"Mission accomplished." He mumbled sleepily as he closed his eyelids. Minutes later a snoring sound was heard from him.

**XoX**

"Do something!" Asuka practically cried out to Misato as she entered the bathroom.

To the former captain now promoted major it was actually a little amusing to find Asuka in the bathroom with her hands seemingly stuck on top of her head.

"Whatever is the matter?" she asked the red-haired German.

"What does it look like! Verdammt noch mal!" Asuka roared. "My hands are stuck to my hair."

"And?"

"Do something!"

Misato reviewed the situation and then said: "I think we have to amputate it."

Asuka had a horrified look on her face. "No! You'll ruin my hair!"

"It's either that or dunking your hands and hair into boiling water, Asuka." Misato gave her a grave, drunken look as she grabbed a pair of scissors.

A terrified scream echoed throughout the entire building, startling everyone but the sleeping Shinji.

**XoX**

Asuka whimpered as she and Shinji walked to school. Since Misato cut off all her hair and then dunked her hands into hot water to remove the hair stuck on her hands, thereby scalding them a bit. She was now forced to wear a wig that was an exact replica of her own hair.

"I'm sorry to hear that Misato had to remove all your hair, Asuka." Shinji said sympathetically to her.

"Shut up, Dummkopf!" Asuka grumbled back at him.

(I wonder what Touji and Kensuke will say when I tell them about it.) Shinji thought as they continued towards school.

**XoX**

_Next:_

_Mission 01_

_Operation Beer Buster_

Where we see Shinji depleting Misato's home of all beverage….

**XoX**

_Heh! Asuka's exclamation was inspired by the quote by Rottingham in the Curse of Monkey Island__, where you tricked Haggis into cutting all his hair off._

_Thanks for helping me with the first chapter Grey Wolf4!_


	2. Mission: 01

Disclaimer: If I ever had owned Neon Genesis Evangelion - would I be writing this? And let's just hope that Gainax won't sue me for writing this fan based piece of (bad) fiction since NGE is their property.

_If ye__ be wanting a mushy lovey-dovey story where all ends so well that ye wants to puke, I advise ye to read another story. But if ye love bitin' sarcasm an' bad humour an' plain ol stupidity' this might be somethin' enjoyable fer ye to read. Now leave me to me grog!_

* * *

Chris Oddland presents: **Operation Prankster**

_Mission 01_

_Operation Beer Buster_

* * *

"So you really emptied the red devil's shampoo bottle and poured **glue** into it?" Touji Suzuhara asked Shinji while looking at him with a slight tinge of admiration.

Shinji twiddled his thumbs while looking at the ground. He looked shy and timid as usual as he confided his secret with Touji and Kensuke.

They were on the school roof. And the only ones there were the three.

Kensuke chuckled as he wiped his glasses with some cloth meant to clean glasses with. "I just wished I had been there and filmed it."

It was a mystery to Shinji why the school personnel hadn't ever managed to force Touji Suzuhara into donning the obligatory school uniform that was enforced them. But then again some questions were better left unanswered.

"I think Asuka would have killed you if you had, Kensuke," Shinji replied to what Kensuke had just said.

"And?"

"It would probably have been a painful death that would even make me shudder in fear and hide in a closet and never leave it."

"I think Shinji has a point, Kensuke." Touji said as he downed the last drops of ice tea from the small carton. "You know how Asuka is when she's really pissed."

"I think a guy from another class experienced that when he asked Asuka out and she then gave him several fractures when he got smart with her." Shinji added as he drew a small sketch of Asuka strapped to a 10 megaton N2 Mine and dropped on top of his father who was drop-kicked down a volcano while being strapped to an anvil in the small notebook he used in his math class with a pencil.

"I hate math!" Touji groaned in frustration.

"And I get tired of helping you out every time you haven't done your math homework, Touji." Shinji complained in return.

Touji responded by bopping Shinji nonchalantly on the head, applying only enough force to make Shinji feel a slight amount of pain.

"Ow!" was Shinji's exclamation as he nursed his head.

"Don't remind me of it. At least you're capable of understanding the basics of it while I get a headache trying to understand even the simplest things." Touji said while looking sourly at him.

"No reason to overact." Shinji retorted. "Even I have to spend hours trying to figure most of my math homework out."

"Better you than me." Kensuke shrugged in indifference as he returned to reading the magazine concerning various facts about weaponry and military vehicles, "You don't know how many times he's asked me to help him out."

* * *

Asuka was being herself as usual in school.

Mainly acting as a total bitch with an overblown ego the size of a hot air balloon.

(Ich kann es nicht glauben! Warum musste es mit mir passieren?) She mentally groaned as she nursed her head with her right hand while the elbow of her right arm was supported by her school desk.

The reason for this was that she tripped in the class room a few minutes ago and her wig (that resembled her hair that had been cut off in the first chapter) fell off as a result of it. A lot of the class began laughing to their hearts content, finding it amusing that the high and mighty Asuka was completely bald.

Fortunately for Asuka that her friend and class representative managed to quiet things down. But Asuka could still hear the hushed tittering and snickering coming from both the boys and the girls in the class.

Hikari Horaki sighed as she listened to Asuka complain and complain and complain and complain…... She was Asuka's friend and for that matter Asuka's **only** friend in Tokyo 3.

"Oh, brother!" Hikari mumbled to herself. She did feel sorry for Asuka, but her extreme egocentrism did strain her patience almost every day. Sure Asuka had her pros, but her cons tended to outweigh that most of the time when she interacted with those she considered beneath her. And those she held in contempt consisted of most of the other pupils attending school because she had attended a university and was considered to be very intelligent and talented.

At first many of the boys in school were attracted by her manner, dignity, grace and exotic looks when she had enrolled into the school.

Luckily most of the boys having some traces of common sense that could convince them that they were wasting their libido and attention on someone they really shouldn't have in the first place. Too bad there were some who had no shreds of reason at all, but made up for it in an amazing amount of lust. They were the guys who Asuka tended to beat into submission since they were but worms, according to her, when compared with Ryoji Kaji whom she herself desired above all things….

And what slightly irritated Hikari the most was that Asuka wanted to come over to her place (and most likely complain some more).

* * *

Shinji gritted his teeth as he made Eva 01 strike the Third Angel with the Progressive Sword that the huge behemoth wielded in its right hand. The blade cut deep into the entity's arm even if Shinji could feel the resistance of the being's hide as the blow hit. The straining mental process of neutralizing an Angel's Absolute Terror Field with the one he projected from his Evangelion in order to remove the powerful barrier which protected it from physical harm was something he had to get used to.

He then more by instinct than by thinking slammed the giant baton/nightstick in his left hand clumsily into its stomach, making it slightly stagger and giving him time to pierce its core with the giant blade with a stab.

The sword plunged through to core and parts of the blade exited out from the Angel's back. When Eva 01 withdrew its blade, the being code-named "Sachiel" by Nerv fell on its back. Shinji saw through Eva 01's eyes that his enemy's eyes showed no signs of life.

The combat simulation ended and Shinji found himself inside the Eva training room inside the colossal underground headquarters of the enigmatic organization Nerv who were the so-called protectors of humanity against the alien threat of the alien beings who were designated as Angels by the organization.

"Your combat performance was very shabby, Shinji," Misato informed him through the com-display that was transmitted from the observation room where she, Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, and some of the Nerv technical staff observed Eva 01 and the information the computers registered, "you could have finished it off two minutes ago."

Shinji sighed. "Melee combat is Asuka's forte, and I'm best at ranged combat with the Pallet Rifle." he told her matter of factly as he motioned Eva 01 towards the weapons rack that now protruded from a wall nearby. He placed his weapons into the slots they were meant to be placed. The rack then disappeared back behind the blank wall. It irritated him that he had to train with weapons meant for close combat. He preferred training with the various firearms issued to the Evangelions. At least the sniper training with the giant sniper rifle model used by Rei was all right enough.

* * *

Shinji sighed as he ejected the entry plug he was in out from the back of Eva 01.

He had returned his Evangelion back to the Cage number 6 where it was normally stored along with Eva 00 and Eva 02. Sometimes his blood chilled when he looked at the three motionless behemoths. He remembered how the top of Eva 01's was like when the facial armour plating fell off and he saw the horrifying reflection. The thing focused his sight on the reflection in synchronization with him. And the most horrifying thing was the dreadful feeling that the thing wasn't staring at himself - but directly at him inside of it. The fear that washed over him as he felt that dreadful, alien eye that seemed to bore through his very soul as it gazed on him with an alien curiosity. He sure wouldn't like to see how the other Evangelions looked like without their facial armour plating.

(If Kensuke is still continues babbling on and on about how envies me for piloting this thing the next time, I'm certainly considering sitting on him with Eva 01.)

While he envied Kensuke Aida's naïve nature, he certainly didn't like his obsession with weapons and constant glorification of war itself and the irritating romanticism he used to sprout about the military in general. And even Touji agreed with Shinji on that a lot of times.

He opened the exit hatch automatically with the entry plug controls and then exited from the entry plug itself.

He then started scratching himself. (Urgh! That stupid plugsuit is really starting to chafe my skin. Not to mention my groin!)

He pulled out the clips meant to help him with synching with Eva out of his hair and tucked it in his hand in disgust as he walked back to the changing room to change back into his own clothes.

After a few minutes he was dressed into the usual school uniform attire he wore almost every day. He slammed his locker shut after literally hurling the plugsuit into it and then locking it.

He tucked the weird-looking hairclips into the chest pocket of his shirt, thinking it might come handy in an emergency situation. And he did have a lot of spares in the locker for that matter.

"Might as well go over to the bridge and see how Misato's doing." He said to himself and pulled out a small map of the Geofront complex out of one of the back pockets of his trousers.

He still had a little trouble navigating himself properly throughout the many corridors a few times; he even got lost one time and got thirty minutes late for a synchronization test. Something Asuka would never let him hear the end of for an entire week.

* * *

"Well the test results prove that the Prog Sword design will have to be revised and the technical flaws in the vibration cells fixed or replaced with a sturdier model that can vibrate a large blade properly without tearing on the inner components of the emitter." Dr. Ritsuko Akagi stated to the technical crew.

"I guess we'll have to postpone the usage of the Prog Sword in the field, Ritsuko." Major Misato Katsuragi said to her friend.

"At least results of the performance of the portable field model of the Positron Rifle that Rei tested four days ago was perfect." Ritsuko noted as she sipped a bit of coffee from her coffee mug. "I remember how desperate we were when we "borrowed" the prototype model from the weapon research facility to destroy the Fifth Angel since the field model was incomplete at the time and couldn't hold enough power to pierce its AT Field."

"I also remember your suggestion to use the lower part of a space shuttle as a shield against its attack since its electromagnetic coating would enable the shield to withstand its energy ray for approximately 17 seconds." Misato smugly replied.

"At least I didn't have the idea to start 'reeling' the Sixth Angel in order to destroy it." Ritsuko calmly commented, seemingly unaffected by what Misato said. "And Operation Yashima was your idea in the first place." She added as well.

While Dr. Ritsuko Akagi and Major Misato Katsuragi continued their discussion the three most trusted technicians posted on the main bridge of Nerv were busy collecting data and transferring it to the supercomputer MAGI, a technological masterpiece made by Ritsuko's mother: Dr. Naoko Akagi.

It was a mystery why the brilliant and talented Naoko Akagi had committed suicide during the completion of MAGI, choosing to throw herself to her death. Not that her daughter Ritsuko grieved that much since she and her mother weren't exactly on friendly terms.

The three technicians were Maya Ibuki, Makoto Hyuga and Shigeru Aoba.

Maya was a technical prodigy who looked up to the skill and experience of Ritsuko Akagi, whom had tutored her and taught her many things when she was chosen among many other people as bridge technician.

While the guitar-playing Shigeru Aoba and his friend Makoto Hyuga would never match Maya in skill they made up for it with their skill to work under severe emergency situations by not giving in to the stress that they felt when the beings called "Angels" attacked. Despite the heavy concentration both had to maintain inside them to keep their emotions in check, they knew they were human and were sometimes gripped by panic as anyone else.

After the transference of data to MAGI, Shigeru took up his guitar and started playing it as he usually did.

Maya on the other hand opened up her thermos and poured coffee into the mug that lay close to her desk (but far enough so that if she spilled it by accident, she wouldn't endanger any electrical components that were susceptible to liquids).

Strangely enough Makoto Hyuga was looking a little uncertain. He took off his glasses and began wiping them with a tissue while he thought about what troubled him. He looked in the direction where Dr. Akagi and Major Katsuragi stood and talked.

He knew he wasn't at all like Ryoji Kaji who had been Misato's boyfriend while she and Ritsuko studied in Germany with many other Japanese students. Nor was he like the other guys who she had dated in Tokyo 3.

(It's worth a shot.) Makoto mentally sighed, hoping he would handle the more likely rejection with some dignity.

When Misato was done talking to Ritsuko, Makoto walked over to her. "Excuse me, Major." He said to her as she turned to face him.

"Yes, what is it?" She asked him quizzically.

"Well… err…. I was wondering if you wanted to go out with me….sometime?" He blurted out stuttering.

Misato looked at him with disbelief….. And then she started to laugh as if it was just a joke.

"I'm sorry, Hyuga, but you're not really my type," Misato tired to apologize while trying to suppress her laughter and instead making chuckling noises.

She then left the bridge as if noting had ever happened, passing by Shinji.

"Can't talk now, Shinji, I have to go to my office and finish some paperwork." She said as the door closed behind her.

Had she looked closer she would have seen a frown on Shinji's face since he had witnessed what had happened.

Makoto Hyuga seated himself by his desk, a little sad smile on his face. "I should have known she would have said no," he said to himself.

Shigeru Aoba put a hand on his shoulder, "Cheer up, Makoto, at least you tried asking her out this time."

"Don't worry about how she just acted, Makoto," Maya added, "It's just how she is."

Ritsuko Akagi was leaning herself against the wall. "Trust me," she commented, "Misato isn't really the type of girl who you want to get involved with in a serious relationship with. Just ask many of the other men she dated in Tokyo 3 before she discarded them." She then had a serious look. "She was flighty a lot of times when we studied in Germany together after she broke up with Kaji. And trust me: she prefers men of Kaji's type."

"Yeah, you're probably right, Dr. Akagi." Makoto said to her.

As he said that, Shinji had left the bridge.

* * *

"So? What do you want?" the Section Two agent asked the son of the commander of Nerv, feeling a little grumpy since he had interrupted his meal in the Nerv cafeteria. He looked less sinister than most Section Two agents since he had removed his sunglasses. It made him look more human.

"Didn't you date Misato Katsuragi many months ago before she simply dumped you?" the boy asked him.

"Yeah, I did. And that was probably one of the worst experiences I've ever had. Can you imagine how much alcohol she can drink and drink and drink?"

"Yes, I can. Especially since I live with her."

"I've heard you're her personal cheap labour source since you have to do most of the chores at her place."

"Yeah." Shinji answered.

"Poor you." He said sympathetically to the Eva pilot.

"I need your help." Shinji Rokubungi Ikari said to him.

"With what?"

Shinji told him.

The agent chuckled and agreed to assist him.

* * *

Misato came home to the building where her apartment was.

As she was but a few feet from her door - she noticed something strange. As she checked the lock mechanism she discovered that someone had managed to bypass it somehow.

She entered the door without using her keycard to open it.

Everything looked normal to her. The television was still there along with all her other things. She checked her wardrobe. None of her clothes or underwear was gone.

"Weird." Misato said to herself as she shrugged and walked in the direction of the refrigerator.

The penguin Pen Pen lay snoring on the couch. Misato noticed that a bowl full of fish bones lay on the floor beside the couch.

She smiled and opened the fridge……

* * *

Throughout the building a scream of ultimate horror echoed with exceptional force. And it shook up several of the other people living there.

Why did Misato make such a fuzz?

The reason to this, dear readers, was that all the Yebisu beer cans in the fridge were gone.

* * *

Several minutes later most of the living room, kitchen and Misato's room were in total disarray.

Many things like kitchen utensils, clothes and other things that were in most households lay strewn over these three places.

"They even stole all my other liquor," Misato moaned as she shook her body over this fiendish outrage which had been committed against her of all people.

The thieves had bypassed the lock and had relieved her of all her alcoholic beverages

The telephone rang suddenly.

Misato wondered if she should answer it, and seconds later decided to pick up the receiver.

"Major Katsuragi," a cold voice said with determination.

"Yes, Commander?" Misato hailed Commander Gendo Ikari of Nerv, wondering what in the world he wanted in a time of crisis like this.

"Certain informants have reported to me that you have been seen drinking on duty multiple times." The Commander said bluntly.

Misato's face turned pale as she heard it.

"But it was only small cans!" Misato answered as she tried to defend herself from the truthful accusations.

"Yes, I am aware of that," Gendo said, "but to maintain order and stability within Nerv itself during straining times like these, an example is to be made."

"And what is this punishment?" Misato asked as the dread within her began to grow slowly.

"You are forbidden to consume any alcoholic beverages for two months. Both **during duty** and when you **are off duty**." He said and switched his phone off.

A terrible moan was heard from the apartment.

* * *

In the meantime most of the Section Two personnel who had their time off from duty were enjoying themselves with Misato's booze and liquor in a pub in Tokyo 3. Since most of them were regular customers, the owner was giving away free drinks.

"Where did you get all of this free stuff," one of the agents asked the owner of the pub as the can of Yebisu beer made a fizzling sound as he opened it.

"A friend gave them to me." was the only answer given.

In the corner Shinji sat with his accomplice, a large glass of Coke with ice cubes in it lay on the small table. The agent had ordered a glass of strong apple cider.

"I didn't know that a few of your fellow agents kept Misato under surveillance?" he said to him.

"You do now," the older man simply said as he began to drink the cider.

* * *

_Next: _

_Mission: 02_

_Casanova Must P__ay! _

Where Shinji teaches Kaji that he has gone too far with the Don Juan/Casanova act when he hits on the other female workers for the nth time…..

* * *

A lot of you are probably going to flame me and tell me that Misato was too OOC for her own good. Heh, well it's just my interpretation of her flighty nature. My impression of her is that she prefers men of Kaji's calibre whether she admits it or not.


	3. Mission: 02

Disclaimer: I don't own Neon Genesis Evangelion. It is the property of Gainax. But that doesn't stop me from writing this fan-based story as long as Gainax doesn't sue me for it.

* * *

**Operation Prankster**

_Mission: 02_

_Casanova Must Pay!_

* * *

Asuka Sohryu Langley emitted cries of pain as the Seventh Angel, or should I say the two entities comprising the Seventh Angel made a double elbow drop on the downed Eva 02. Then they began to jump on the Evangelion in synchronization.

* * *

In the observation room, Shinji Ikari winced a little in (very) minor sympathy as he saw one of the Angels restraining Asuka from behind while the other repeatedly punched the stomach of Eva 02 like a common street brawler.

* * *

Eva 00 just leaned on a small building as it and the pilot inside just observed the fight.

The albino girl, Rei Ayanami knew that the Second Child only had herself to blame for this mishap. That was because Asuka minutes earlier before had told her to stay out of her way while she wasted the Angels. And so Rei did that. And it was kind of amusing watching Israfel split itself in two and double-teaming against Eva 02 like two wrestlers out for blood.

One of them then climbed on top of a building and jumped on top on the red Evangelion.

* * *

"Ouch!" Makoto Hyuga commented.

* * *

_One of the many labyrinth corridors in NERV HQ:_

An unconscious Asuka was wheeled away on a stretcher by the medical team. Her wig had fallen off after she passed out, by the way.

Shinji wondered if it had been wise of him to ask Maya shyly if she could program the AI combat simulation system with wrestling moves for a random Angel to spice up the simulated combat scenarios. And it seemed that Ritsuko was in a good mood an agreed that it would be interesting.

Asuka should have known that Ritsuko knew enough German to hear that she was badmouthing her in her native language. She was in fact one of the many Japanese students who were studying abroad in Germany.

Shinji knew that all Germans weren't like Asuka. Some of the technicians working here at Nerv were German. And most of them were at least polite towards others. Sure many of his own countrymen weren't any better than Asuka. Shinji was realistic enough to know that every country had its own troublemakers who made life hell for others, even those of their own people.

He produced forth a map from his pocket and grumbled: "I knew I should have taken that left turn!"

* * *

Major Misato Katsuragi had a desperate look in her eyes as the feeling of abstinence and ultimate despair kicked in.

She had thought she was able to handle it.

But one week without any booze was taking its toll on her.

Currently she was in her office finishing some of the paperwork she had postponed working on after the last Angel attack. Signing here and there, and trying not to bore herself to death by reading all the technical facts about property damage and such.

"Oh, God!" she moaned in complaint and accidentally spilled the contents of a mug filled with coffee over several of her papers.

"NOOOOOOOOO!"

* * *

Maya Ibuki picked up the can of juice from the slot of the vending machine.

(Another day on the job as usual.) she thought. While her job as a bridge technician paid well, she was beginning to feel pangs of regret about joining Nerv after the commander's son got involved into the military campaign against monsters that seemed to have come out from a Godzilla flick on steroids.

Early on she had realized the favouritism Gendo reserved to only the First Child, Rei Ayanami. Almost every time Rei got hurt he would spend time talking with her in the infirmary; he also had many conversations with her on other occasions, treating her as his own daughter while treating his son like a complete stranger and pawn in his perverse, twisted game.

When the diamond-shaped Fifth Angel had almost killed Shinji in their first encounter, the commander had never even bothered to visit him while he was in a coma and didn't even batter an eyelash when he saw him being hurt and screaming through the monitor as the angel blasted him.

Even the seemingly calm Shigeru Aoba and Makoto Hyuga had even been horrified over seeing the fourteen year-old boy being simultaneously boiled alive and feeling the pain of the energy blast boring through Eva 01's chest on the pilot com-display.

Other battles with the angels confirmed their suspicions about the commander not caring at all about his own son.

It almost made her start taking daily doses of sedatives again. Makoto started taking sedatives when the terrible stress became too much and needed to calm down. He had confided to both her and Shigeru, saying that no kid should get involved into a war like this, trying to deal with the guilt over seeing children being sent in biomechanical monstrosities to battle other gigantic and bizarre monsters, watching them being hurt and mangled as they bit by bit turned into soldiers in a child's body. Scarred forever physically and emotionally each battle.

Shinji had tried to imitate Asuka's brash and cocky demeanour by gradually building up enough self-confidence that would have matched hers hadn't he been swallowed into the abyss-like void of the 12th Angel. She could only imagine the inhuman horror of being trapped in an alien place, waiting to die as the power ran out.

After escaping the enigmatic hellhole physically unscathed, he had reverted back to the timid, sad boy that had arrived into the warzone.

Her soliloquy was interrupted as a pair of arms embraced her from behind. Maya sighed in irritation as she closed her eyes, her face taking on that of a frown. "Can't you cut out this act at least once, Kaji?" she sourly stated with a matter of fact determination.

"What if I told you that I can't just help it." Kaji answered. From his tone Maya could figure out that he was smiling that sly smile of his as usual.

"No wonder your relationship with the major didn't last," Ibuki grumpily commented as she made a "he is hopeless look while staring up at ceiling while pulling her shoulders up in defeat." She also had to restrain the sickening urge to slug him in the face, really hard.

That was because that it was a time where she had neither the patience nor time to put up with Ryoji Kaji's various antics. Her mind suddenly formed mental images of her piloting Eva 01 and making it stomp viciously on Kaji again and again and again and again. And then she proceeded to grind the foot of the Eva against the ground as if wiping a squashed bug from her shoes.

"Um… hello?" Kaji was now standing in front of her, waving his right hand up and down in front of her face. The sinister smile on her face as well as the sadistic, dreamy look in her eyes were giving him the chills.

"What?" Maya said her face taking on an irritated manner as her consciousness returned to what we call reality.

* * *

"Where the hell am I now?" Shinji sighed, making a Ryoga Hibiki impression. All this just because he was opting for a little variation instead of taking the same route over and over again.

In a way the cold, sterile corridors made him feel that he was more led to his doom than being led by fate itself. Ever since coming to Tokyo 3 the premonition that he could never flee from his doom as it slowly like a puppet master pulled its strings to steer him to the scorching oblivion he sought so hard to evade became stronger than ever for each battle.

Ever since his mother disappeared and his father left him, he has felt that he was going to be part of a doom-ridden tragedy where death would be the only release from. A grim and sombre comedy where he would always play a failure who always would end up failing when it mattered the most.

He sighed and began rereading the map to pull his dark thoughts aside, for a little while at least.

He was who he was. Shinji Rokubungi Ikari, a person flawed in both body and spirit, but a person nonetheless. That was the only thing no one could deny him the right of being.

He started to sing Tired of Being Alive by Glenn Danzig, just to lighten his mood.

"…….And I'm tired of being alive…… Spite of the bleeding….."

He just wished he had his faithful walkman with him. Then at least he could listen to that Deep Purple cassette he bought in a flea market.

* * *

Maya Ibuki was looking like she was about to blow some steam.

"By all that's holy, Ryoji Kaji! Can't you think of anything else!" She practically shrieked at him, snarling like an angered cat about to attack to attack without mercy.

Kaji was backing up against the wall, slightly frightened and taken aback by the outburst of the normally passive bridge technician who now seemed to spout gouts of flame from her mouth.

"Do you think for an instant that you can just go waltzing around making passes at every girl you meet? Well - you've got another thing coming, buster!"

She snarled at him and then turned around and left.

"Sheesh! Talk about bad temper." Kaji muttered to himself.

* * *

Maya Ibuki stormed through the labyrinthine corridors of NERV, her mind filled with seething rage.

"The nerve of him! The freaking nerve of him! She mumbled heatedly to herself.

Actually, the young technician should have been watching where she was going, since she clearly felt that she bumped into someone who then fell on the ground.

"Ow!" She heard a familiar meek voice groan out. Looking clearly she saw the boy code-named Third Child rubbing his head with a pained expression.

"Are you all right, Shinji?" Maya asked the boy as she helped him up.

"Instead of answering with the usual "yes", Shinji said: "No, my head hurts a bit."

"I'm sorry," Maya said with an apologetic face.

"It's all right, Ms. Ibuki," Shinji answered, "considering that I've been through worse." Thinking immediately about living with both Asuka and Misato and being manhandled by Angels and feeling whatever the Evangelion felt. The prospect of dying swiftly in battle and being free of the two women forever suddenly became more tempting as he thought about it.

Maya looked at the boy in silent contemplation, then suddenly said: "……… It's just that the stress has been getting to me and having Kaji act like he's God's gift to the women isn't helping at all."

"Not again!" Shinji said in frustration as he slapped his forehead. "The Casanova of Tokyo 3 strikes again. To think that the Evangelion maintenance personnel were right about staff members labelling him as the third worst annoyance in Nerv, My father ranks first place, by the way; with Asuka in second place."

Maya Ibuki sighed: "One of these days someone will have to teach Kaji a lesson."

In a non-Shinji fashion Shinji Rokubungi Ikari had the devious, scheming face of a Rokubungi for a few seconds.

"I think I know some guys who would be dying to help out." he blurted out.

Maya looked at him as if he was a total stranger. The look on his face had given her the shivers as she saw the gentle, sad features of the boy for a moment transfigure into something more sinister and cruel.

"What?" Shinji said in annoyance.

"This isn't like you, Shinji," Maya looked at him as if he was a changeling from some stygian abyss.

"Just because I'm a spineless, snivelling maggot with an ego as fragile as ultra-thin glass, doesn't mean that I'm incapable of being a backstabbing jerk."

* * *

Major Misato Katsuragi was tearing several strands of her beautiful hair from her hair by the roots.

"**Arghhhhhhhhhh!**" she cried out. "I hate this - I simply hate this!"

Even stuffing the now coffee-stained and unreadable documents into the paper shredder in her office didn't seem to help her lift her spirits.

"Kinda reminds me of the time you failed several of your exams back in Germany," a familiar voice said amused and light mockingly.

"Kaji!" the Major roared in surprise. "Get out! I don't have the time for dealing with you now, you double-crossing, two-timing creep!"

* * *

"I have to admit that Kaji has a way with the ladies," said Shinji sardonically as he viewed the two ex-lovers through the PC monitor.

"Remind me why I'm doing this again?" moaned Maya.

"Well with my father being my father, I had the hunch that he's installed hidden surveillance cameras everywhere around Tokyo 3 and that his mindless slaves - I mean 'faithful subordinates' are no exception to this rule."

(Great! Remind me never to try that polka-dotted swimsuit on in the dressing room again,) Maya thought acidly.

"Thanks to your tutelage from Dr. Akagi, I knew that you could access the Geofront camera network, Miss Ibuki," said Shinji, with a minor praising tone.

"Are you going to listen or are you just going to talk?" Maya said in irritation as she turned her attention to the couple.

* * *

"Whoah! The alcohol ban must be really getting to you, Misato," said Kaji, while backing against the wall.

"Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" Misato snarled at him as her hands began to twitch, clench and unclench in a rapid tempo. The hands were currently reaching for Ryoji Kaji's throat.

"Now, now, Misato. There's no need to go homicidal on me."

Kaji ducked as Misato lunged at him and ran behind the up-turned desk. Misato turned, her stance that of a predator ready to pounce upon its prey.

(This kind of reminds me when she caught me in bed with three girls sleeping in it,) Kaji thought in panic as he stepped backwards.

He quickly deduced that the slight traces of redness in the white of her eyes was because of her abstinence. And that she was looking for something to take out her frustration on. Namely - him!

(Oh, god! I hope I brought it with me!) Kaji thought and fumbled with his pockets. He sighed in relief as he felt the sought object.

Suddenly the major found a packet of chewing gum being waved in front of her face.

The label said: **Yebisu In Your Pocket: The beer-flavoured chewing gum**

Ryoji Kaji closed his eyes, steeling himself for the beating that would come - but the beating that he expected never came. He instead felt the pack of gum being snatched out of his hands; followed by a ripping sound. Then the sound of someone chewing like it's the end of the world.

Kaji opened his eyes, seeing Misato chewing gum like there was no tomorrow.

(Phew! I'm saved - for the moment!) he thought in slight relief.

Misato's breathing became calmer as she savoured the taste of the beer-flavoured gum, and Kaji concluded that she wasn't going to clobber him into submission - yet.

"Ummm…., Misato?"

"What is it?" the major said inquisitively.

"Well considering today's pay day, I was wondering if you'd be interested in dinner."

"Dinner? As if in a date?" Misato's face curled up into a grimace of disgust. "I think I'll pass on it!"

"Well, you don't have to see it as a 'date', Misato. Just think of it as an offer to have dinner with an old friend for old time's sake."

"The day I consider you as a 'friend' is the day I marry the commander!" Misato's face made a twitch of disgust. "Yuck! If I ever got married to that I guy I'd really have to resist the temptation of taking my gun and putting a new hole in my forehead with a dum-dum bullet!"

"Now that hurts," Kaji said sarcastically with a sly smile.

* * *

"Well that was a close shave!" Shinji amusingly commented. "Who'd have thought that they made beer flavoured bubblegum in the 21st century?"

"Pity she didn't wring his neck!" Maya harrumphed.

"You're certainly in a bloodthirsty mood today," said Shinji with a sardonic smile.

Maya snorted: "You ain't seen nothing yet, kid. You should see me when I'm really mad."

* * *

Major Misato Katsuragi of NERV was currently resisting the urge to claw her former lover's eyes out with her nails due to the fact that she couldn't stand him when he had that smug look on his face.

But then again, when she thought about it, the offer of dinner on Kaji's tab was pretty tempting considering the fact that commander Ikari had given her severely strict orders not to consume any amounts of alcohol for two months. At least something tasty would put her mind off the inner, rabid feeling of alcohol abstinence that raged through her like a howling inferno.

"Oh - All right!" Misato grumbled, "I'll take up your offer, but don't get any smart ideas, buster! This certainly isn't a date - and if you try anything funny I'll bust your skull."

* * *

"Hmmmm…." Shinji mused as his face contorted into the contemplative, arrogant sneer of his father. "This looks like a dinner party I have to crash!"

(Somehow I don't like the sound of this.) Maya thought nervously.

As she stared at the screen again, she heard the sound of a mobile phone being used. From the sound of the bleeping Shinji was probably going through his telephone list and trying to find someone to call. The question running through her mind was: Who's he calling?

"Backstabbing wimp to vulture's nest. Are any of you off-schedule today?" Shinji said as the phone was picked up.

"This Is buzzard five, reading you loud and clear, backstabbing wimp. What's your situation?" A male voice answered with an American accent.

"Let's just say that someone has a bone to pick with agent flirt-o-maniac and that she would be glad if we gave him his just desserts." Shinji replied simply.

"Read you loud and clear, son."

"Just make sure to tell Elise about this, she's been itching for some payback," Shinji said and continued telling the plan in hushed whispers.

* * *

"Normally it would a gentleman's job to take care of the driving," Kaji commented while sitting in the passenger seat close to Misato.

Misato made a shrieking sharp turn that sent Kaji crashing to the window of the car door. "But then, again you're not a real gentleman," Misato said sweetly and acidly at the same time. "And since the commander's put a ban on my drinking - I might as well do the driving."

Both were dressed in formal clothes: Kaji in a formal grey suit with a white shirt. Misato in her black dress (having finally gotten the stains washed of it weeks after the Third Angel attack).

The newly polished and waxed blue Renault simply glided through the traffic of Tokyo 3 like an azure spectre soaring through the night.

"I'm glad you're keeping your hands to yourself," Misato simply said to make the time pass.

"Now I'm hurt," Kaji answered cheerfully with a mock pout. "At least I'm not the one who mail-ordered her driver's license while studying in Germany."

"Says the guy who loved car chase movies and wound up days in jail for reckless driving." Misato retorted with a sardonic smile.

"What can I say: you're a bad role model, Misato."

(Reminds me of the old days.) Kaji thought reminiscing on the old days when he had believed that Misato had loved him for who he was and not as someone serving as a father worship substitute. It had helped, the feeling of being loved. It kept him sane through the years in Germany, suppressing his ultimate shame. His betrayal of those he held most dear: his younger brother and his friends. He remembered the military compound, rations spread on the cold ground, face bleeding and battered - the cold metal of a gun pressed to his head. He remembered how he full of fear had sent his brother and the others to their deaths by stuttering out the location of their secret hiding place. He remembered escaping and seeing the army truck depart from their home; the inside revealing the bodies of what had once been children struggling to survive lying pools of their own lifeblood, bullet holes and the stench of gunpowder was the sign of their fate. Their bats useless against the rifles of the merciless soldiers.

"…..-Ryoji….. Hey, Kaji!" the voice of a worried woman startled him back to reality.

"-What!"

"You kind of had me scared for a minute when you zoned off into space." A worried Misato said.

"It's nothing." Kaji said. Like himself he knew that Misato had her own demons to deal with, like the scar on her body and soul. Both of them were pitiful creatures, he thought, to keep her sanity chained to reality, Misato had become reliant on the bottle, while he had adopted the Casanova James Bond persona to keep him from going mad with guilt.

What if they had let go of their inner demons? Maybe their lives would have turned out different? Maybe they would have made a new start without looking back? Getting jobs, buying a house, getting married and have a family. Being themselves and the masters of their own fate.

"You haven't called me that in a long time, 'Katsuragi'." He knew it had been a long time since Misato had called him by his first name instead of always addressing him by his surname.

A small blush appeared on Misato's beautiful face, but she quickly suppressed it and concentrated more on driving. "So what? As if that's something big!"

(Where did we go wrong?) Kaji mused sadly. (If only I had had the strength to ask Misato if she saw me for who I was or if she was only looking for a blank reflection of her pa. Or if Misato would've seen me more as Ryoji Kaji than a reverse-gender Oedipus resemblance of her father?)

Ryoji made a sigh of relief as they finally arrived at the restaurant, and Misato parked the car.

"I hate soliloquy!" he mumbled to himself.

"What did you say?" Misato looked at him asking. "I didn't hear what you just said?"

"It's nothing," Kaji forced himself to automatically make an indifferent shrug.

* * *

The Le Figaro Noir was a European-themed restaurant with a reliable reputation. Even most of Section Two liked eating out here when their pay checks arrived.

In the entrance hallway, guests were greeted by a large painting of Charles Martel with his army of Franks routing the relentless invaders in the year 732 in the epic Battle of Tours.

In another hallway something else was taking place……

"Sorry about this!" the Section Two agent apologized as he stuffed the bound and gagged waiter into the janitor's closet.

"Here's some money as compensation," the other agent said and stuffed a wad of Japanese yen bills down the waiter's shirt pocket and nonchalantly closing the door.

With a satisfying click, the third culprit locked the door with the key.

"Pardon me for asking, but is it exactly with you Section Two and wearing shades twenty-four seven?" Shinji Rokubungi Ikari asked quizzically.

"Who knows?" The agent shrugged, "maybe it's because the commander wanted us to have that cold ruthless men with black sunglasses look to intimidate everyone.

"And besides," a fourth voice, and a female one at that, said. "We don't wear these things while sleeping." She made an emphasis by pointing at her black sunglasses.

"Sorry, for asking then." Shinji apologized sincerely.

"Sometimes I wonder if you're soon going to apologize for being born," she remarked.

The female agent made an irritated frown. "Mon Dieu!" she exclaimed in her native tongue, "What've I gotten myself into?"

"For a few hours ago you seemed pretty eager to finish unfinished business with Kaji, Elise." One agent said.

"Yeah, but if word gets out on the street about our li'l escapade - it's 'Au revoir, Nippon!' for me."

"As if my father's going to worry about our little caper, when he's got bigger fish to fry," Shinji scoffed. "Certainly if he finds out it'll be considered a minor nuisance compared to the other problems."

"Like paying for that old-vintage Rolls Royce you flattened when you were playing Catch-The-Falling-Angel-With-You're-Hands?" Elise commented sourly.

Shinji answered by giving her a sour look.

"And now for the cooks," one of the Section Two agent said, hoping to avoid some serious infighting between their fellow conspirators.

"Yeah, I've been itching for playing the crazy chef for years, and now the dreams of my deranged youth are about to be fulfilled." The other agent answered wearing a stereotypical chef's hat on his head.

"Please take that ridiculous hat off!" Elise complained.

"Not a chance!"

Elise had to resist the strong urge to hit her fellow agent.

* * *

"What's the meaning of this?" The head chef demanded to know after two men and a short-haired woman in black suits and black sunglasses barged into the kitchen, startling the entire cooking staff.

A very believable counterfeit ID was waved in front of his face.

"We're from the Health Department of Tokyo 3, Japan, and we believe from sources that there's been a series of food poisonings as a result of dining in this joint." The agent wearing a chef's hat stated coolly.

"Preposterous!" the head chef snarled in disbelief. "No such thing has occurred here!"

"I'm sorry, sir, but we have our orders. You and the rest of the kitchen staff have to come with us for questioning, so please step out in the hallway with us, so that we can extract the details." The female agent interrupted politely.

"Ok," the head chef muttered sourly, "let's get this over with!" He turned to the rest of the small kitchen staff. "You heard what they said. Now out in the hall - all of you!"

* * *

Minutes later the waiter in the janitor's closet got some company, in the form of the kitchen staff bound and gagged like him. He wasn't happy about it - not the least.

"Looks like we're all set," said Shinji after locking the janitor's closet again. "Let's get into the costumes we brought with us."

"Tell me again why I have to be the waitress?" Elise complained as she was putting on contact lenses to hide her true eye colour.

"I make a lousy waiter, and I guess the other two are in the same position as me." Shinji said.

"Can't argue with that." The Section Two agent agreed.

"Fine!" Elise snarled in defeat. "Just help me with my disguise."

"Don't worry!" The Section Two agent sporting his chef's hat assured her. "I've worked as a makeup artist in a horror movie studio.

"Now that's a relief," she answered ironically, hoping that he wasn't going to make her look like an ogress.

* * *

An agitated waiter barged into the kitchen. "You were supposed to finish that dish minu- What's going on here? Where's the regular staff?" He looked surprised at the strangers working in the kitchen.

The two cooks sporting the standard issue chef uniforms, aprons and hats, wearing black sunglasses looked up at him along with their teenaged kitchen assistant who got interrupted in his scurrying through the kitchen. A waitress he'd never seen before was wiping away some grains of rice from the skirt of her uniform, before making sure the trays were in order.

"They got sick," one of them said simply as if it was nothing wrong. "The boss called us in as last minute substitutes."

"That's stupid! Who's heard of an entire kitchen staff getting sick at the same-"

"Well, it did!" The other cook interrupted him, looking away from the list of the dishes needed to be made, "Now get out there and earn your pay, or the boss will see that you get fired for harassing your new co-workers!"

The waiter glared daggers at them and was about to say something, but then decided against it and stormed out the way he came.

"What a charming guy," Elise said with clear sarcasm a she wiped away a stray lock of the black-haired wig she was wearing from her eye. "Reminds me of my last boyfriend."

"Tall and handsome?" Shinji asked.

"No, self-centred and incredibly stupid. Kinda like you, kid." She added with a twinkling mocking smile.

"I'll get you for that remark." Shinji grumbled.

"Better men have tried and failed, boy." She answered in a faux melodramatic pose.

Shinji gave up. "Whatever! Just get out there and make sure that the major and her cavalier get a restaurant visit they'll never forget."

"Will do, o mighty rider of Eva 01." She said and made her way through the door.

"Good luck!" she heard a young boy behind her say reluctantly.

"Merci, Shinji." Elise thanked him and flashed him an amused smile before disappearing through the cafe doors.

(Now that I think about it she does have a pretty nose along with that cute smile of hers.) The unexpected thought simply popped up in the youth's head.

* * *

"Bonsoir, I am Nadia and I will be your waitress here at Le Figaro Noir." Elise warmly greeted Kaji and Misato who'd seated themselves in a spacey and tranquil corner. She made sigh of relief as Kaji apparently didn't see through her disguise when she handed the guests their menus.

(Hmmm… Seems like something's on Casanova's mind other than women tonight. Feh! Almost shames me to do this now, Sir Flirt-a-lot. Who am I kidding! I'm going to enjoy this!)

Acting the part of the dutiful waitress, Elise, wrote down the orders of her two soon-to-be victims. "Anything you want to drink in particular?" She added.

"Just water for the two of us for now, mademoiselle," Kaji said, "Maybe we'll order something else to drink later."

"Is it just me or are you trying to make fun of me, Kaji?" Misato asked as acidly as battery acid.

Kaji just gave her an amused smile. Not the arrogant smirk he usually flashed, but more of that of an innocent amused man. "Wouldn't dream of it, Misato; I just thought it wouldn't be proper for a gentleman to drink alcohol in front of a lady with an alcohol prohibition."

"Hmph!" Misato smiled at him. "I never was a lady and never claimed to be. And no way in hell are you a gentleman."

"Reminds me of Vienna," Kaji smiled, "When we ditched our studies and Ritsuko and went on a small vacation to Austria. Like when we attended that ball and waltzed the night away. Me in a formal suit, you in a white ballgown with opera gloves. But I have to say waltzing with a slightly tipsy girl like you was no picnic after you helped yourself to two cans of Yebisu beer (Buddha knows how those ended up in Austria) and one bottle of French wine. Not too mention that you really shocked those other women with your raunchy remarks."

Misato giggled. "After all these years you still remember that. But I've to say that it was sweet of you to carry me back to our hotel room and putting me to bed and that next day you served me breakfast in bed and helping me get over a major hangover."

Kaji felt something stir in his heart as she said that, as if some part of him longed for the days past. The feeling of that a part of his soul that he thought dead forever was rising from its dusty and cobwebbed grave like a phoenix from the ashes. Like he was truly alive again for the first time.

* * *

"Let's see, men," Elise said with a devious smile, "As an appetizer, both want soup and salad. Misato'll have a boiled lobster and Ryoji's ordered a medium-rare steak with béarnaise sauce."

"Mwahahahahaha! Two soup a la special surprise, coming right up!" The agent with the seemingly unhealthy obsession of playing cook from hell cackled with the giddiness of a mad scientist ready to awaken his newest construction on the slab.

"That guy scares me!" Shinji said to the other agent.

"Agreed. We have something in common, then, boy." The other agent said.

* * *

"…… And there you go, monsieur and mademoiselle, your appetizer is here!" Elise said in a happy singing voice as she placed the bowls in front of the two guests.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Kaji mused as his ingrained paranoid gut feeling went alert over that sinister, tiny smile on the waitress' lips.

"What - that you haven't been hitting on any good-looking girls?" Misato commented with a sly smile as she picked up her spoon.

"Not that. When you work in our line of business you always have to stay on your toes and be ready for anything."

"Sometimes I wonder if you've always dreamed of becoming a secret agent, since you were a boy." She said as a tiny smile appeared on her lips.

"Not really," Kaji joked, "I've always wanted to be an evil genius with my own underground base and a lot of lethal minions to do my dirty work for me and several lethal death traps and try for world domination every Tuesday."

(Actually), he thought, (me and my brother wanted to be horror movie stars.)

A hearty chuckle was heard from the major. "Let's just enjoy our appetizers, for now."

As the two ate a spoonful of their soups their faces suddenly turned into grimaces.

"Water! Water!" the major cried out as she felt as if her throat and mouth was on fire.

"Yeesh! This soup's too salty!" Kaji spat out.

Then something in Kaji's soup bowl began to stir, and up from its depth floated a tiny wind-up toy holding a pair of cymbals. The little toy began to click and clack into action and banged its tiny cymbals together: resulting in that hot salty soup was splashed repeatedly on him.

* * *

"Gets 'em every time, my super spice surprise and salty cymbal surprise!" The chef agent cackled like a madman.

"That guy needs help…." The young pilot said to his fellow conspirators.

"Greedy, good-for-nothing commander! Why did you have to drop the psychiatric clinic just to cut expenses!" The other agent muttered to himself.

* * *

Normally Ryoji would've acted calm, but not this time. His expensive suit had been dirtied.

"Take that! And that! And that!" he cried out as he repeatedly hammered his soles on the tiny wind-up cymbalist.

The bowl now turned into something looking like a fractured mosaic, lay scattered on the floor, along with pools of soup remains.

"Gah!" Misato gave out a cry of pain as she downed an entire pitcher of water down her fiery throat.

"Don't worry, Misato! Help is on the way!" Kaji shouted and grabbed a full pitcher of waiter from his neighbours.

"Hey! That's our water!" One of them exclaimed.

"Here, Misato!" Kaji cried out in concern and handed her the pitcher.

Misato Katsuragi proceeded to chug down the all the water in a desperate attempt to quench the fire in her throat. Luckily she managed just to do that.

"M-my God!" Misato wheezed out, still feeling the soreness of her poor throat. "Thanks, Ryoji."

If Ryoji Kaji was surprised over Misato once again this night addressing him by his first name he did not show it. He had more pressing concerns to take care of.

* * *

"I'm so sorry about that!" the waitress who had called herself Nadia apologized to the two. "Something must've happened with the soup the cook prepared."

"Either that or the cook's a total basket case." Kaji, tried to be as civil as possible, but it was as hard as trying to empty a lake with a paper cup full of holes.

Elise got close to him and whispered: "If you ask me - I bet sabotage."

"Huh?"

"Our establishment being given a good reputation, has as expected, accumulated a lot of enemies who would give their right hand to send our restaurant into oblivion and take its place as the city foremost expert in European cuisine."

"You got to be kidding me, miss!" exclaimed Kaji.

"Sure," the waitress snorted sardonically, "As if seeing several foot tall rejects from a mecha anime fighting monster that even guys making Godzilla movies wouldn't employ isn't farfetched enough." The waitress proceeded to mutter curses in French as she began to clean up.

It took Kaji the summoning of an awful lot of self-control to not barge out of the restaurant and never set foot there again.

"Let's just have the main dish and then get out of here, Misato." Muttered Kaji.

"Well I paid for a lobster, and a lobster I'll have. I won't leave this place until I have one." Misato replied and chugged down another glass of water.

* * *

"I have to give them that," Shinji appraised his victims, "they are a stubborn lot."

The Section Two agent chef smiled as he dumped the paint brush, with traces of red paint into his half-empty bucket full o' red paint.

Meanwhile the other agent was tampering with the small pitcher filled with béarnaise sauce that came with the steak.

"Phase two is now in motion," was the declaration uttered from the lips of the boy as Elise in her disguise as Nadia the waitress entered.

One of Shinji's thoughts at the moment was that if he somehow was exposed he could always "run away" to Korea, get a Korean name and learn how to speak and act Korean and hope that a 10 megaton N2 mine would hit Tokyo 3, killing everyone and the angels. After all, after Second Impact, the Korean peninsula, despite the chaos and bloodshed around it, somehow luckily managed to get together again after overthrowing the communist leaders of North Korea. Despite being kept in the dark about most of the technical Project E information, he would be of some use when it came to steering giant behemoths that had to synchronize with the pilot; or he could work as a cook in restaurant or become a cello player in an orchestra. Or he could flee to Germany and settle down with a nice European girl (hopefully not as deranged as a certain blue-eyed redhead).

* * *

Misato appraised the red lobster on the plate in front of her. "Well this looks promising," she uttered in appreciation, because the lobster was a bit larger than the average lobster you get in most restaurants.

Kaji tried to deafen the sound of the danger alert ringing through the corridors of his skull. (Hmm… The steak seems all right to me.) He cut a small slice and popped it into his mouth. (Tastes delicious with not too much spice. Guess it was just a false alarm.)

As he reached for the pitcher two uncanny things happened almost at the same time.

a) The pitcher exploded splashing him with warm béarnaise sauce.

b) The lobster clamped its claws onto Misato's hand as she was about to knife and fork it.

The purple-haired woman screamed hysterically in pain as the lobster carried on with its vicious attack for the sole desperate purpose of avoid ending up in her belly. That he had been painted red also didn't help.

Wiping the sauce from his face, Ryoji proceeded valiantly (or to be frank angry as hell) to rescue the damsel in distress from this vicious beast. Prying the little terror off the woman's hand with some effort, Kaji heroically dispatched the foul thing by drop-kicking it back into the lobster aquarium.

"That's it!" Kaji cried out. "We're out of here, Misato!"

"If it makes you better," the waitress said as the two guests barged past her and out of the restaurant. "the management will personally cover for the tab."

Kaji whirled around. "What is this? A madhouse? For crying out loud, all I wanted was to have a nice dinner! You can forget ever seeing me here again."

* * *

"You all right, Misa'?" Kaji asked as he used the car's first aid kit to treat Misato's crushed hand.

"Of course not!" the major exclaimed. "That angel spawn broke my hand!"

"I guess I'll have to drive," Kaji sighed.

Hey! Hey! Hey! " the purple-haired woman protested as Kaji was about to get in the driver seat. "I'm not letting you anywhere near the wheel of my machine!"

"Do you prefer walking all the way home?" Kaji asked frankly.

* * *

"Y'know pouting like a crybaby doesn't help a thing," Kaji said as he arrived at the parking lot.

The drive back to Misato's place had been quiet - too quiet and that was a bit creepy for him.

"Believe me," Misato said gruffly, "it definitely was no picnic to let you handle my ride."

"Remind me never to play the gentleman in front of you again." He growled as he stepped out of the car and threw the keys to Misato.

"Have a good night," he added coldly and walked away.

If he had been closer he would have heard Misato sadly whisper: "Good night, Ryoji…"

* * *

Kaji decided that he despised the small feeling which had seemed dead had now risen again like a phoenix from the ashes. Yet a part of him welcomed it back - this warm feeling that was like an ember trying to slowly grow into a small flame. Old feelings he wished forever banished seemed to live again.

As he arrived in his apartment, he discovered as he entered that someone had broken into his abode. At first he had panicked, but a closer inspection revealed was that the only things that were gone were all his NC-17 DVD and VHS collections, there was no trace of any of his XXX magazines that were stashed around his place whatsoever.

He suddenly felt like one of the three bears discovering that someone's been sleeping in their bed.

* * *

"And don't forget to burn them! Burn them well!"

Vice-commander Fuyutsuki grunted in disgust as he had Nerv personnel remove the tasteless objects that had been heaped in his office.

For who in his right mind would watch something named: _The chaste tentacle demons and the escape from the planet of butt-naked, horny magical girls!_ An absurd comedy where three tentacle demons were abducting by a flying saucer and taken to a planet of nymphos and the following misadventures that followed trying to escape with their chastity and sanity intact.

And _My girlfriend's a dog-demon! _A rather crazy sex-comedy about a guy courting a nice girl who so happens to have dog-like ears and a tail (and a tendency to get fleas now and then) and their action-packed adventure to defeat the army of rabid, horny catgirls (who wanted to turn the city into a city of carnal delights) and buy some flea powder and engagement rings.

* * *

Misato sighed guiltily as she lay on her futon, trying to get some sleep. She had checked that her two wards were soundly asleep.

The creepy thing was that Shinji had a sinister smile similar to that of his father on his sleeping face, like an archangel of evil.

* * *

_The next day:_

"Wo bist du gewesen, Shinji!" Asuka screeched in German. "Antwortet, du blöder Mistkerl!"

(What did I ever do to deserve this hell?….) Shinji thought, feeling sorry for himself like he did almost every day. He had to resist the urge to bash Asuka to death with the frying pan he was frying eggs on and cut her wide open slowly using all the kitchen utensils at hand.

"Outside Tokyo3," Shinji lied. "I got some Section 2 agents as escorts."

"Say? What do you think happened to Misato?"

"Dunno? Guess she had an accident."

Misato who was standing outside the kitchen had a thoughtful look. (Hmmm… I wonder- no skip that! It's Shinji we're talking about for heaven's sake!) The major dispersed her suspicions and proceeded to carry on acting like she usually did at the morning, except that she still had that alcohol ban - So therefore no cheerful Misato scream/shriek™ this time either.

"Oh, God! This wasn't what I expected when I joined the army!" She groaned and reached for her Yebisu beer-flavoured gum.

* * *

_Next: _

_Mission: 03_

_Check-Up_

As if day in and day out with synchronization tests wasn't enough, Shinji has to undergo a health check by Doctor Ritsuko Akagi and his patience isn't exactly what it was. Not to mention what happened at the home economics class earlier.

* * *

Yeah, I admit that it's taken a long while since I actually worked seriously on my fics, but I hope this chapter was both entertaining and tasteless for you readers.

I decided to depict Kaji more like his manga version, since I liked the more sympathetic portrayal of him in the manga universe. Funny enough I can't say that I like anime Kaji that much, but the manga version is more likeable to me for some weird reason.

Now I just have to finish working on the chapter of a Naruto fic I'm working on.


	4. Mission: 03

Disclaimer: I don't own Neon Genesis Evangelion since it's the property of Gainax. This is just a piece of fanfiction coming from a moody fan.

But before we continue with my fic I just want to respond to some of the reviewer's.

To Mister Cynical: I guess that would be me, since I do have a deprived mind sometimes and it seems to live a life on its own.

To James Hanson: Yes, it was Gendo who talked to the major (I guess even he has to discipline his officers when they're making Nerv look like a laughing stock without any military discipline). Never heard of Animal Instinct, but I will confide in you and the others that I wanted to make a bad joke after watching a few episodes of Inukami and remembering Inu-Yasha. That manga parody sounds like fun, by the way. I watched a few Magnum P.I. episodes but not the one you mentioned, and sadly I've never seen Hopscotch.

To Grey Wolf 4: Personally, I think Yoshiyuki Sadamoto managed to flesh out Ryoji Kaji as a character better than Hideaki Anno. I recommend the volume where Kaji reveals his tragic past. And don't worry since Fräulein Asuka will sometimes get what's coming to her, and Gendo will probably be the victim of a few plots.

To Gunman: Sorry about it turning up a little too light, in the beginning I was thinking up some really twisted things, but decided against it since I wanted to portray Kaji acting more like his manga persona who sees both him and Misato as pitiful creatures who could have turned around years ago but didn't. Maybe I'll have Shinji steal Ritsuko's cats and hiding fish under Gendo's desk or pour fish essence on Gendo's uniform….

* * *

It was the freckles he decided that made her attractive.

This went through Shinji Rokubungi Ikari's head as he looked at the class representative Hikari Horaki who was currently having her hands full with some students arguing about how to bake a cake and trying to confiscate Kensuke's new mini-camera after he and Touji filmed girls from inappropriate angles.

Sure he liked home economics, since it wasn't as mentally straining as having to deal with other school subjects.

Compared to the volatile spitfire Asuka and the aloof and distant Rei, Hikari was reachable.

"Shinji! Concentrate on the cake!" A familiar voice with a German accent screeched (as usual), then Shinji felt a painful blow to the head when a flying rolling pin hit.

Asuka Sohryu Langley glared at him. Like the rest of the class she was attired in an apron as he was.

"Ow!" Shinji groaned "That was uncalled for!"

"Halt die Klappe!" was the bark returned to him.

A lot of boys from Shinji's class gave him a sympathetic look. To them it was a mystery why the Evangelion pilot still put up with her.

They didn't see Shinji reaching for something in his pocket.

* * *

"I told you that sauerkraut you had for breakfast didn't look good." said Shinji.

"Verpiss dich!" was the ungrateful reply coming from the grumbling Asuka who was mopping the floor of the classroom.

(I should remember to bring more purgatives.) Shinji thought.

Home Economics hadn't exactly turned out like most wanted to. One cake exploded in the oven, courtesy of a large overdose of yeast. A pudding strangely enough had substituted salt for sugar and contained chunks of meat in it. A pie was discovered to contain a stink bomb vial.

Despite not showing it he did tend to nurse a few grudges here and there, since meek guys were easy pickings for the creeps in class. And Kensuke pestering him about the new mecha animes on the TV had gotten on his nerves.

No sir! He wasn't turning into a mentally unstable, backstabbing bastard like his father. It just looked that way……

* * *

**Operation Prankster**

_Mission: 0__3_

_Check-up_

* * *

_Replace the theme song Cruel Angel Thesis with Basket Case by Green Day_

* * *

If there was one of the many things Shinji hated it was hour-long synchronization test spent in LCL-filled entry plugs.

"Please concentrate again, Shinji." Dr. Ritsuko Akagi said through the com-screen.

He hated it even more when he was naked.

"Could you at least tell me why I have to spend half-a-day stuck here naked with a pair of sci-fi hairclips stuck on my head?" Shinji whined in impatience.

"This test is one of the many processes in order to improve and fine-adjust the synchronization between Eva and pilot." Ritsuko began, and almost made him go to sleep when she really got into her scientific techno babble.

"Shinji," A somewhat irritated voice scolded him, "please pay attention."

"I just hope we don't get our computers and test gear infected by angels again. I hate being stuck in a metal tube in a lake without anything to wear… again."

"I don't think you should worry about that anymore, Third Child, since we did manage to destroy the enemy that time."

"After you left us floating in that lake for hours without end. I even got bronchitis that took three weeks to go away."

"At least you didn't get syphilis like Misato did after one of her usual drunken one night stands." She commented.

"Ew!" Shinji made a grimace in disgust.

"I feel the same." Dr. Akagi concurred.

* * *

"God, I'm glad it's over!" Shinji muttered as he relaxed in the shower room while scrubbing away LCL with a bar of soap.

Hopefully the next time he would only do test performances of the new cache of weapons made for use by Eva. He still itched to try out the positron rifle field model and the ballistic arsenals, seeing that he preferred to stay out of harm's reach while shooting his targets to death. Maybe they even got the green light for the giant grenade launcher firing 5 kt N2 mines.

He still had fond memories of the time he piloted Eva 01 against Asuka in Eva 02 in combat training. Like the time Asuka charged at him with her giant polearm and he simply peppered her full of non-lethal rounds with the pallet rifle and sent her sprawling to the ground, but unfortunately in the heat of battle he forgot to look out for Rei who nailed him in the back of Eva 01s head with a sniper headshot. It felt as if Touji in a fit of rage had hit him from behind with a chair when he woke up in the infirmary with the feeling that rhinoceroses were polkaing in his head. And a mad Asuka didn't make things any better since she began hitting him from the moment he woke up.

"If my life's a mecha anime - someone please kill me now." Personally it was no wonder that he said that considering his life as an Eva pilot had really given him a severe aversion with anything that had to do with mecha. It had taken incredible self-control once to prevent himself from stuffing a gundam toy down Kensuke Aida's throat and screaming "If you love mechas so much - you pilot Eva 01!"

His sudden daydreams about using Eva 01, dressed like King Kong with bolts on its neck and carrying the world's largest sledgehammer, to go on a rampage and destroying all the studios making mecha anime and manga and laughing in diabolical joy was interrupted by the entry of Dr. Ritsuko Akagi.

"Do you mind?" she said with impatience in her voice. "We still have to proceed with the medical health check-up.

(Thank god all the shower stalls were made to screen out most of our body parts.) Shinji tried to comfort himself while he reached for his towel.

At least it hadn't been Misato who popped up here. He really hated it when she acted like she was trying to get a full-body peek of him. One time it ended with him sleeping with a bat under his bed for a week. Maybe he shouldn't have watched the _Ward-seducing Big-Breasted Guardian from the Immoral Hedonistic planet of Succubus VII_ with Touji and Kensuke.

* * *

He didn't mind the syringes or the x-rays or the scanning devices. It was more the cool professional manner of Dr. Akagi that was creeping him out. Sure he did respect that since Nerv was officially a military organization in need of professional personnel, with Ritsuko being one of the few who managed to act the part as scientist and Rei the professional soldier while Asuka and Misato were quite the opposite.

That was one of the things that bothered him; and the fact that he was once again naked and in a large glass cylinder tank filled with LCL while Dr. Akagi observed him while monitoring the controls and scribbling in her notepad.

Shinji Rokubungi Ikari was bored to put it frankly. Bored and tired. He wanted to sleep yet he had to keep himself awake.

"How do you feel?" Ritsuko asked.

"The same." She heard Shinji's voice through the integrated speaker.

Shinji then saw Ritsuko fiddling with a few controls, suddenly he felt more awake as if a caffeine rush had magically appeared from nowhere and some of the burden of tiredness was lifted from his shoulders.

"It seems that stimulants that are now being pumped into the LCL has adequately restored both adrenaline and minor removal of fatigue." Ritsuko noted and wrote it down.

(Great first she takes my heart rate, pulse rate, blood pressure and x-ray scans, and now I find myself being the test subject of all things! As if it wasn't bad enough to get poked a half-a-dozen syringes earlier!)

If Ritsuko had looked, she would have seen Shinji giving her a cold, judging glare like that of commander Ikari.

* * *

Ritsuko Akagi, daughter of the scientist Naoko Akagi sighed tiredly as she plopped down on her newly acquired chair inside of her office. The chair was quite an intriguing piece of furniture, being equipped with a massage system, automatic hydraulic press and automatic turning system that could be controlled by the side panel on the right side.

The health check had been satisfactory, despite the Third Child blundering through it all like he usually did. Not that she had much against it, since the meek child was much easier to handle than Asuka, and she didn't have the sinister inner urges to murder Rei now and then like strangling her with a stethoscope or plunging a long syringe needle through those ghastly red eyes of hers.

"I'm really starting to become pathetic," Ritsuko chided herself. (Imagine being jealous of the commander's other tools. Didn't really think I would sink as low in the end as you did, mother.)

Of all the available pilots only Rei Ayanami was deemed a soldier. Cold, obedient and efficient she got the job done despite having the lowest synch rate of the three. Asuka in the end for all her vaunted praise as a child genius and years of training had proven to be one of Nerv's greatest failures. Her reckless nature and egotism was a danger to everyone. Shinj on the other hand was the emergency conscript drafted against his will immediately on the field of battle without any true preparation for the horrors that would come.

It was due to Rei's reliability that she was chosen as the person on which the first dummy plug series were based. The first prototype had in the end proven to be a flawed weapon, due to the plug's mental instability and lust for blood which ended in its immediate termination. The second had given exceptional results and had paved the way for the first production models of the dummy plug system.

As she absentmindedly let her fingers press some buttons on the chair panels - all hell suddenly broke loose.

First the chair sent her headfirst into the ceiling, causing her to scream in pain. Then it started crashing up and down like an out of control piston in an old factory machine. Then it simply started to spin like crazy.

"HEEEEEEEELLLLPPPP!" was the scream heard outside the corridors of Dr Akagi's office.

It didn't help at all that she discovered herself being glued to the chair.

Then the infernal contraption began to act like a masseur savagely massaging a woman with rough sandpaper. "AAAIEEEEE!" It didn't help that she also felt like someone was trying to break her back at the same time.

As she spun around and around like a human whirlwind one of her shoes came loose and hurtled itself into the computer screen with a crash.

Then the chair started to shake, rattle and roll. And still it kept on spinning.

Dr. Ritsuko Akagi's face turned a severe shade of green as the twirling was getting to her.

It was both fortunate and unfortunate that she then came loose.

A spectacular crash erupted inside the office.

* * *

Major Misato Katsuragi a.k.a. Beeerzilla (even though she was under a two month alcohol ban) was met with a rather big mess at her old friend Ritsuko's Akagi's office.

A spinning and rattling chair was going crazy and wrecking stuff in its path while she found an unconscious Ritsuko crashed into the file cabinet with parts of her lab coat and skirt torn off.

* * *

"We were forced to terminate the chair on the spot, doctor," Section Two agent Elise reported while wearing her usual black shades.

Ritsuko looked at her while wiping her mouth while still confined to the infirmary bed with bandaged covering the top of her head and a sore back to boot. "Did you find anything out?"

"Apart from how absurd it's to shoot a chair, not much. Except that from the pieces of it left that we examined we discovered that someone had earlier fiddled with the internal wires in the control panel and destroyed several parts beforehand."

"Sabotage!" Misato growled. "Did the security cameras have anything on them?"

"See for yourself," Elise said dryly and turned on a nearby computer screen.

_"Back! Back! Back, I tell you!" the young ward shrieked as he swung his baseball bat about._

_"C'mon! Don't be shy,__ cutie!" the big-breasted sexy guardian in a pink lingerie said huskily and tried to seductively advance on her prey._

_**SMACK!**_

_He nailed her on the head and then ran for his life._

_"And I thought it was bad when my stepmom tried to seduce me or that time I got stuck in a girl's dormitory full of nymphos!" he shouted to himself as he threw himself out the window and into the swimming pool._

_The scene then shifted to a very frightened tentacle demon running for his life from a horde of nymphomaniac, lolicon, catgirl schoolgirls with NC-17 intentions in mind._

_"MAKE US BEAR YOUR CHILDREN!" they all meowed._

_"NOOOOOOOO!" the thing screamed in inhuman horror and climbed up a tree. A very foolish decision since his pursuers were feline and quite capable of following him_

"…………………." Was all Ritsuko and Misato said.

"Someone thought it was funny to rewire the cameras so that instead of watching the office and the nearby corridors they were playing some demented NC-17 stuff.

Misato swore loudly and struck a nearby… with her broken hand.

A cry of pain erupted inside the infirmary.

* * *

Shinji wondered if he should feel ashamed but decided against it. Who would have thought that tinkering a bit here tinkering a bit there would cause so much trouble? Having dozens of tool boxes and janitor closets with all useful stuff lying around in Geofront and sudden improvised sabotage could result in some destructive things.

He had an amused Rokubungi-like grin on his face as he started to walk home.

* * *

_Next up!_

_Mission: 04_

_Happy Father's Day!_

_Shinji tinkers with the commander's office._

* * *

This chapter's pretty short compared to some of my earlier chapters. I decided to try to write shorter chapters so that I don't get too stuck with one long chapter. I hope this chapter's crazy enough for you readers, and if it isn't - there's always the chance for me to correct that error and revise it.

_Note: made some corrections and tried to fill out a __few things._


	5. Mission: 04

Disclaimer: I don't own Neon Genesis Evangelion which is the property of Gainax. If you love plain stupid fanfic stories containing dark sarcasm and a very tasteless imagination this might be enjoyable.

_I also wish to thank PCHeintz72 for actually having the patience to read through parts of my earlier drafts, and giving me something to add to the dialogue in my fic._

* * *

**Operation Prankster**

_Mission: 04_

_Happy Father's Day!_

* * *

Replace theme song Cruel Angel Thesis with Give The Kid A Break by Alice Cooper

* * *

It would an understatement to say that father and son didn't get along. Especially if you're Shinji Rokubungi Ikari! It probably had something to do with that the commander of Nerv didn't treat him as a son. In fact he was more of a (very cheap and expendable) peon to his father. Or if you want to put it in a simple manner: cannon fodder for the monsters called Angels.

If he could turn back time he would probably have avoided Tokyo 3 of all places in Asia and then have avoided this soap opera that was now his life.

Shinji made a smile of satisfaction as he gave some Wehrmacht soldiers a present in form of a spray of hot lead fired from his M1 Thompson submachine gun.

It sure was nice of Kensuke to borrow him his old video game console and games. But he still declined to play all those tasteless H-games and H visual novels - they still remained sealed in that padlocked metal box.

Medal of Honor: Frontline was helping him relieve some of the stress after dealing with Asuka when he imagined himself killing her in several ways like introducing Mr. shotgun to her head or giving her a gift in form of a bazooka grenade.

He wondered if people in Korea and China and other places in Asia had an urge to play Medal of Honor: Rising Sun and Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault to relieve severe amounts of stress sometimes. Maybe even the Tibetans enjoyed playing Battlefield 2 as well.

He proceeded to introduce the butt of his M1 Garand to a German soldier's face.

After minutes of going on a homicidal video game rampage, he decided to switch to MOH: Rising Sun, a game he had bought himself on a flea market.

He gave sardonic smirk as he mounted a machine gun emplacement and proceeded to mow down the howling banzai charging horde. Later a Japanese officer got his final lesson in why you shouldn't try to use your katana to cut down a man holding a fully loaded trench gun. Later he decided to switch to the Pearl Harbor level and had fun using the machine gun emplacement on the tiny patrol boat to shoot down Zeros like a trigger happy maniac playing Space Invaders in a caffeine kick.

His mind imagined the faces of his friend Kensuke Aida and his father a few seconds now and then all the time he played the game. Why he imagined his father was pretty simple: they didn't get along and probably never would. Kensuke had been getting on his nerves lately when he waved around a Gundam toy in front of his face again. How ironic! Most mecha anime pilots never had to deal with realism like he had to, like getting stuffed into a biomechanical monstrosity without being your average day fictional hero character.

There wasn't much on TV aside from the annual mecha anime 24-hour marathon. Mecha anime reminded too much of Eva, so he declined watching it.

Shinj then groaned as he looked over to the calendar. Chores as usual with him making the meals, taking out the trash and cleaning. The usual stuff he had to do in this apartment.

"Wark! Wark!" Pen Pen warked and poked his leg with his flipper.

"Misato forgot to feed you again, Pen Pen?"

The penguin nodded in acknowledgement.

"Sometimes I feel that I'm the guy who has to take care of you all here." Shinji smiled and went over to the kitchen. Pen Pen made happy sounds as he followed Shinji.

At least there seemed to be some good in that good for nothing slob of a major, since she saved the hot spring penguin's life when the scientists working on him decided it was time to get rid of him.

* * *

"Nimm das! Und das! Und das!" Asuka Sohryu Langley ranted as she brought the Prog Spear up and down on the body of the fallen creature named Sachiel. She continued flinging out German curses in her Berlin dialect

Her cursing would make most people blush, those who understood German at least. Major Misato Katsuragi and Dr. Ritsuko Akagi wondered if the bridge tech crew understood the girl.

"War das alles?" She asked as her observers saw her cocky grin on the com-screen. Eva 02 just stood there with the giant spear wedged through the fallen thing's core.

"You were supposed to destroy the angel, not wreck the city." The major corrected her.

The simulated landscape of Tokyo 3 did after all show a city block that seemed to have been caused by a drunken Godzilla high on plutonium tripping over a discarded ballistic missile.

A string of curses followed.

"You don't need to flip your wig at me, young lady." Misato groaned as she tried not to move her broken hand more than necessary. At least she had it in a cast now.

Maybe the major shouldn't have made that wig remark, since now cruder curses erupted.

"As usual your weapon and piloting skills are exceptional, Asuka, but there's still the matter of your lack of discipline." Ritsuko said analytically while wishing that she had the means to rein in the troublesome Second Child whose recklessness was like that of a pyromaniac with a matchbox in a dynamite factory. Likewise as the commander, she concluded that the Second Child had her uses as a tool, but unlike her superior she believed a harder discipline was in order to keep them all alive.

At least they didn't decide to base the dummy plugs on Asuka, since that would compare to inviting disaster for a nice cup of tea while N2 mines rained down from the sky.

* * *

Shinji was inside the public hospital of Tokyo 3 with a bouquet in his hand. On his face was a mixture of guilt, self-loathing and fear that he couldn't hide. Yet he forced his feet to move in the familiar direction he wanted.

It was time for his visiting hour.

He hesitated as his hand reached for the door. He tried to reach again, but retracted his hand as if burned. After a few attempts of trying and failing, he slowly gathered the willpower to enter.

"Good morning, Haruka," he timidly greeted Haruka Suzuhara, Touji's little sister.

The younger girl greeted him with a smile that made him hate himself more, remembering that he was at fault for putting her there.

"Hi, Shinji!" Haruka exclaimed with happiness and raised herself from the hospital bed.

Like her brother she spoke with the same dialect as Touji, her brother.

"I-I brought you some flowers," he stammered.

"For me? You shouldn't have." Haruka answered as blushing dimples appeared on her cheeks

Her friendly and innocent behaviour made him wish he had died when his father had sent him to die against the Third Angel. Even Touji's anger had been easier to bear than this. This was heart-wrenching agony that wanted him to fall on his knees and beg forgiveness.

"What is it, Shinji?" Haruka inquired as she got a glimpse of the grimace on his face.

"It's nothing," Shinji answered and forced himself to smile weakly as he shook his head.

It was times like these he envied his father for his cold and aloof nature while he on the other hand had been cursed with a conscience since the beginning of his bleak existence.

They talked about anything pleasant they could think of at the moment. Until a nurse announced that he had to leave.

"See you next time, Shinji!" Haruka waved at him as he left.

* * *

Shinji cursed himself again for putting the child in this condition as he curled himself up in a darkened secluded corner of the hospital. Horror had been what had coursed through him when he for the first time had for himself seen Touji's little sister when confronted with the consequences of having stepped in the Evangelion for the first time. He wondered if Touji knew of his visits or if Haruka hadn't told him about her other visitor.

"….. The Suzuhara girl's been making slow progress in recovery," Shinji suddenly heard an older male voice utter. His eyes turned sideways and he saw a doctor speaking with a nurse.

"Her condition's more stable than before," the doctor continued while he flipped through the medical documents he held, "There's no danger from severe internal bleeding anymore and she's recovering from the concussion, but the fractures are taking time to heal."

"Too bad we don't have the medical expertise and equipment that the Geofront has…….." lamented the female nurse.

The two began to walk away again while continuing their discussion, oblivious to the young eavesdropper in the shadowy corner.

(Maybe I can make things right again.) Shinji thought as the prospect of lifting some of his guilt off his young shoulders came in sight.

* * *

Ryoji Kaji grunted in irritation as he put out his cigarette.

(Damn it! Not even smoking helps me get my mind of her anymore!)

A part of him detested this feeling- No he hated this feeling! Yet a part of him didn't want to get rid of it. It was even getting in the way of his true purpose of being involved in Nerv as the commander's shady subordinate and top intelligence gatherer.

Even his extensive training in suppressing emotions and feelings wasn't enough.

And the most annoying thing of all was that someone had stolen all his absurd NC-17 DVDs that usually helped him take his mind off things. Sure it was not what you'd call the most normal form of _personal therapy_, but it had worked in a way. The horrifying image of Asuka in a pink negligee trying to sneak into his locked room and seduce him was one of the nightmares made flesh he had to recover from and still kept haunting him.

"Maybe I should've tried straightening Asuka in the past instead of ignoring the problem. Now look at me: I've got a crazy, neurotic underage teenager stalking me…" He mused and wished he still _had Psycho Commando Tentacle Demons versus the Army of Horny Magical Girls_ where a group of trigger happy, paramilitary tentacle demons had to save the world from magical girls by mowing them down with vengeance. Sniper, the wisecracking tentacle demon able to wield several high-calibre sniper rifles at the same time was his favourite

* * *

Shinji wondered if this would work.

Kozo Fuyutsuki, vice-commander of Nerv, had politely received him in his office where he had filed his written request for transferring Touji's sister to the advanced medical facilities of Geofront.

The visit had been brief, having been quickly dismissed by the busy vice-commander.

Shinji leaned against a corridor wall as he exhaled. Even this short audience had taken a lot from him. A part of him didn't want to do this, another part of him felt dread and wanted run away, far away from everything. Somehow he had mustered enough self-control and self-discipline that he never believed he would have when he entered the vice-commander's office.

Maybe he was going mad? Shinji wondered if this screwed up life could get any more dysfunctional than it was before. He remembered the near fatal struggle with the fourth angel, how he felt the burned and scalded naked hands of Eva 01 gripping the handle of the prog knife despite the pain and then the primal savage scream of a cornered animal making its last stand as he recklessly charged. How he impaled by its tendrils and how he ignored the pain as he thrust his blade into the crimson core with all his might in that moment of madness.

Touji and Kensuke had been shocked over seeing him transform from a quiet, scared boy into a savage hell bent on killing his enemy despite the cost. But all that he had felt that moment was to kill and the ecstasy of unleashing the beast that lurked in the murky corners inside the heart of man.

If he ever got out of this Eva business alive he seriously needed therapy or possibly a permanent residence in an insane asylum. Oh, he could very well imagine being stuck in a cozy padded cell in his comfy straitjacket and babbling about a redhead eurasian terror with blue eyes lurking in the shadows to get him. And the nice doctors giving him his daily dose of sedatives with a man-sized syringe.

* * *

The giant Pallet Rifle was actually manufactured by Nerv Germany in coalition with the Austrian firm Steyr-Mannlicher who for strange reasons opted to make an economy-sized Steyr ACR for test evaluation. And Nerv Germany seemed to like this model and decided to mass-produce it for their Evangelion units after having Steyr make the rifles have bigger magazines.

Shinji was quite comfortable wielding this giant bullpup rifle when inside of Eva 01. At least it was safer than charging headlong with an oversized axe or spear.

"Hmmm…" Shinji contemplated as he inspected his weapon. "Other than the slightly increased weight, I can't say for certain that there's anything wrong with it."

"We had you in mind when we planned modifying some of our rifle supplies, Third Child." Ritsuko Akagi said through the com-screen. "This is the first test model, fresh from the weapon's rack."

A progressive knife had been converted to a mountable bayonet and inserted into the underside mount of the modified rifle.

"After going through the battle data and data collected from the simulated battles, MAGI (and myself as well) came to the conclusion that you're more comfortable with ranged combat than close combat. After the a board meeting with the weapons department it was agreed upon that to further your survival rate in future Angel engagements it was necessary to capitalize on your combat strength while at least equipping you adequately for emergency close quarter combat." The scientist continued her narrative.

(Ding! Ding! Give the lady a big fat prize! Wasn't that obvious from the start! And why do you have to consult a super computer when you could have thought that out yourself from the start?) Shinji thought bitterly. Did she think he was some kind of mecha anime character who could do everything? Unlike Asuka and Rei he'd never had the opportunity to train for years.

Shinji started concentrating as Dr. Akagi gave the word to start the training.

An immobilized simulation of the Fourth Angel appeared.

He listened to the clear instructions of the supervising combat instructor cooperating with Ritsuko of how to handle the bayonet and where to hit.

Shinji braced himself as he made Eva 01 plunge the vibrating blade deep into the crimson core of the thing in front of him. As an afterthought he pulled the trigger and blasted the upper part of the caterpillar-like thing spawned from who knows where. He then used Eva's foot as a leverage to pull free the rifle and started introducing the butt of the rifle to the angel several times.

"Shinji!" Ritsuko chastised him. "We are conducting a weapon test, so cut the dramatics. Now stop mashing the test dummy to mincemeat!"

It took a few minutes for Shinji to get back into reality again. He quickly realized that his brief thought flight had made him forget that he was piloting his purple colossus and not playing video games in Misato's apartment. He did feel embarrassed enough that if he found a hole he would gladly crawl into it.

"Eh… Just testing the durability of the weapon in field combat, doctor Akagi…" Shinji tried to stammer out an excuse. He guessed the excuse didn't work since he saw her scowl darkly through the com screen.

"Why do I have to deal with insubordinate **children**!" The scientist complained to herself.

Soon a simulation of the Third Angel appeared and Shinji proceeded to try out his bayonet on the awful thing along with the occasional rifle bash while the instructor continued instructing him.

"This thing's pretty sturdy." Shinji remarked.

"I guess I might as well add the stress- and battle durability into the file report." Ritsuko sighed.

* * *

"Request denied," Shinji read from his returned application. He also noticed that the paper was signed by his father.

Even the sound of Motörhead playing through the headphones of his walkman did nothing to soothe this.

_You're out there on your ow__n, your face turned to stone…. Whatever happened to your life? ….. Stone Dead Forever…._

He took a deep drink from his can of juice, while resisting the urge to vent it out on the immobile vending machine.

Images of him piloting an Avro Lancaster fitted with a grand slam bomb with his father and Asuka tied to it and gleefully dropping it over Tokyo or possibly Berlin went through his head.

Or thoughts of him re-enacting Battlestar Galactica's airlock execution with Asuka and father as his victims, while he dressed as Gaius Baltar and stood beside President Laura Roslin and waving them goodbye and grinning as if he won the lottery prize.

* * *

Commander Gendo Ikari (formerly Gendo Rokubungi until he took his wife's surname) still kept his cold mask facial expression like he did everyday when entering his dark lair, also known as his office.

He stopped in his tracks as he discovered that his office smelt different from what he was used to. He didn't recognize the smell actually, but he thought that he probably should have.

Being a pragmatic and rational man, he had installed hidden surveillance cameras everywhere but his own office so that he could keep all his chess pieces/unwitting lackeys in check while on the premises of Geofront. He liked spying on others but not being spied at himself. A nice pastime had actually been single-handedly searching his lair for bugs and hidden cameras. He did find some actually and mailed it back to Seele, addressed personally to Lorentz Kiel who then proceeded to make his agents place them back in his office again, while he found them and mailed it back. He always smiled when he imagined Kiel gritting his teeth in anger over his apparent audacity.

He walked over to his desk and sat down.

"Is the ventilation system breaking down again?" he grumbled as the smell was getting on his nerves.

He should have more attention considering the fact that the smell was at its strongest at the desk and chair. And that the smell was sticking to his clothes.

He started hearing rattling sounds, scratching and yowls coming from the small ventilation grill.

It certainly wasn't a human being. After all he had asked the architects "nicely", while a mob of Section Two agents surrounded them and looked menacing, to make his ventilation shaft so small that a man wouldn't be able to fit through it. If someone was dumb enough to try it they would get stuck inside it and die, just as he planned it to be.

As his favourite actor Bruce Campell so aptly put it in one of his memorable roles: _Hail to the King, baby._

It was then that the grill came crashing down and in spilled a multitude of cats.

The scream of a fully grown man was drowned by the sounds made by the frenzied felines who scratched and bit to the commander's dismay.

* * *

In another corridor, Shinji Rokubungi Ikari proceeded to screw shut the ventilation grill and hoping that he could get into the nearest incinerator on time to dispose of the emptied sack with the remains of cat hair in it.

Getting into his father's office and getting out after spraying concentrated catnip extract all over the place and especially the desk and chair was an adventure in itself.

"Happy father's day," he mumbled while taking on the smug smirk that his father made when he was pleased over something.

* * *

_Chapte__r end song: One of the Living by Tina Turner_

* * *

_In our next chapter__…_

_Mission: 05_

_Last Dance?_

_A reluctant Shinji is forced to attend the school ball.__ What further misadventures await him?_


	6. Mission: 05

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the property of Gainax and created by Hideaki Anno and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. And this is just a sarcastic fanfiction written by a demented individual, who if he was a Call of Cthulhu RPG character would have few or zero sanity points after failing too many sanity checks. I don't own any of the songs mentioned either.

* * *

**Operation Prankster**

_Mission: 05_

_Last Dance?_

* * *

_Intro song: The Living Daylights by A-ha_

There are many things in life that we really don't like. To Shinji those things were his father; Eva; Asuka on a bad day; Misato hitting on him in a drunk stupor and pretty much the rest of his dysfunctional life. If this could be called a life; in his opinion it was probably his nightmare and a mecha fan's ultimate wet dream.

Too bad that's when reality kicks in with spiked metal soles to the head. A dozen times in fact. After days and hours of synchronization training, pilot training and not to mention having to make time for homework and school tests you would probably also have such an opinion. That and dealing with a cast that makes the military seem like a cheap joke.

(Now if only they had chosen Kensuke instead of me.) was Shinji's sarcastic thought as he just sat near his school desk, listening to his friend Kensuke rant over a new mecha anime. He imagined himself in a Curtiss P40-B making a dive while headbanging to Iron Maiden's Aces High and mowing down Kensuke piloting a Nakajima Ki-27 Nate and laughing like a deranged maniac while a shrieking Kensuke death-spiraled somewhere near Kunming, China. And then he proceeded to do the same thing to Asuka's Messerschmitt Bf 109 with more grim satisfaction. His grin also matched that of the grinning shark's mouth painted on his plane as he watched his second victim plummet to her doom while hurling curses in German through the radio.

"Verdammt noch mal! Hör mir zu, Shinji!" Asuka cried out and bopped him on the head.

Shinji's paperback book went to the ground. And to his irritation the bookmark scuttled further away.

The still beautiful yet still impossible Eurasian glared at him with piercing beautiful blue eyes that burned as fiercely as two shining blue stars. Too bad these stars were too hot to handle for most reasonable boys. And Shinji Rokubungi Ikari considered himself meagerly reasonable.

But "meagerly" was a pretty weak emphasis since he still lived in the same place; and he couldn't very well abandon the innocent hot spring penguin to a lonely fate with a drunkard and a girl in need of severe psychiatric help.

"Ouch! Why did you have to do that, Asuka?"

"It makes you listen," was the gruff reply he got. "Du hast es verdient, du Volltrottel!" she added in German as well.

Shinji like most mild-mannered, timid people do have their limits and Shinji was imagining himself strapping her to a giant bull's eye and do some target shooting with a fully-manned Flak 88 armed with HE rounds. Or possibly running over her slowly with a Tiger tank – rolling over and then putting the monstrous vehicle in reverse and back and forward over his tormentor.

"Hast du kein Gehirn zwischen die Ohren?" Asuka slapped him out of his trance.

Just another day as usual with Asuka who always seemed to want him to be her subservient thrall, while she bragged about what a wonderful and talented Eva pilot she was and also making sure that he didn't push her out of the spotlight.

He certainly hoped this hadn't anything to do with the posters pinned on the bulletin boards in the hallways. He had after all looked forward to playing a ported version of Goldeneye N64 tonight.

"In case you haven't noticed the school ball is due soon in a few days." Asuka informed him in her usual curtly manner while re-adjusting her wig.

(Help!) Was Shinji's thought as a sudden chill went up his spine. His latent Shinji senses were tingling to the point of full breakdown (living with Asuka does develop a sense for when there's danger in the air) and was telling him to hightail it to some far-off, abandoned lamasery in Tibet where no one would find him. And if they did he could always roll some giant snowballs on them from the top of a handy hill.

Instead of his usual I mustn't run away mantra what was going around in his head was _I must run away… I must run away… I must run away…. __**I must run away!**_

While Shinji actually wanted to say "No! For the love of God! No!" he instead said "Huh?"

Asuka rolled her eyes up. "Here I am trying to make you listen and even then you're still as stupid as ever!" Her lips twisted into a snarl of disgust. "And to be frank I'm only doing this so that any of the other immature, disgusting boys here won't ask me out." Even though most sane boys were turned off by Asuka's peculiar personality, there were still some who hadn't done away with their passion for her, she hated cleaning the pile of love letters her locker every day; and the look of longing from most of them because of the school ball was creeping her out and filling her with so much disgust and loathing that she swallowed her pride and hasted to make Shinji her cavalier.

(Have to come up with an excuse – fast!) He thought. The memories of those days of torment when he had to train the synchronization dance with her were still fresh. They did defeat the 7th Angel(s) because of it, but he refused to go through with another one of those torture experiences again – permanent.

"B-But I don't know how to dance all those formal dances like waltz, polka and all that stuff,"

A vicious smile that appeared was Asuka's response: "Then it looks like I have to teach you, Third Child. Or are you planning on **defying me?"** He clearly heard her emphasize on the last word, judging from the tone of her voice.

The boy found himself suddenly quite agreeable to the Second Child's proposition. He should have taken that offer as an amateur cello player in the classic orchestra club in school when he arrived here. At least then he would have had a good enough excuse to escape the clutches of this exceptionally beautiful and yet remarkably terrible girl whose residence was under the same roof he lived.

Meanwhile he did manage to observe the class rep looking with a longing look after Touji who was ogling his album of scantily clad Misato in skintight miniskirt pictures. Lucky, stupid bastard. At least he had the chance to get together with a saner girl while he was stuck with ice maiden and Satan's mother.

* * *

Inside the apartment of Kaji a rather unexpected thing was revealed.

_"Thunder... Thunder... Thunder... Thundercats!"_

Strangely enough Ryoji Kaji was singing along to the intro song of one of his favourite cartoons from his youth and enjoying an episode he hadn't watched for ages..

While all of his NC-17 DVDs had been stolen, his greatest treasures were still untouched. Stashed in a secret hideaway lay his DVD collection of Thundercats, M.A.S.K., Silverhawks, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Transformers, Bionic Six and many more Western cartoons from the past who many Japanese animators contributed a lot. There would really have been hell to pay if someone dared put their thieving paws on this hoard. He did after all know how to kill a man in many painful ways.

Maybe this could help get Asuka off his back, if she found out about this. With his luck the deranged redhead would outright deny everything and still pursue him with her well-known stubbornness. If it wasn't for his job being a double-crossing jerk he would have filed for stationing at Nerv Germany a long time ago and been on the earliest plane.

Most women he'd met never got it why he had a nostalgic passion for these things. As if he cared. Born and raised in the 80s with his family before the cataclysmic Second Impact, it reminded him of happy times long passed.

"Definitely better than watching porn and h-anime." was his comment while sipping a cold beer while now enjoying the opening song for Bionic Six.

* * *

There is a thing called pleasure and pain treatment to train animals and occasionally,but not officially, human beings, but for Shinji Rokubungi Ikari it was actually more a pain and pain treatment no matter what he did.

The training to beat the 7th Angel was a lighter burden by comparison. Asuka's a harsh mistress after all. The unforgiving dance teacher from hell would be the nicest word he would describe her with right now.

"Watch your hands!" was the scream uttered, followed by a sharp slap.

"Sorry," was Shinji's automatic reply.

"I told you not to move your hand even an inch away from that part of the waist I ordered you to hold it! Seriously why do I even allow you to do it?"

(Why do I have the feeling that I'm a dead man if this goes on,) Shinji thought.

(Maybe I shouldn't have filled Asuka's swimsuit with itching powder that time. But it was very educational in learning how to swear crudely in German.)

"Now continue practising on the steps like I've told you. And don't bend your back like that! Keep it straight!"

(Why did I have to run out of batteries for my walkman today! Will this nightmare never end?)

The dancing music that followed was between periods interrupted by slaps and a boy whimpering, wishing now that he never had been born.

* * *

Being the mistress of the undisputed lord of Tokyo 3 was sometimes harder than it seemed. Especially when it came to the commander's peculiar tastes...

"What in the world did I get myself into?" Dr. Ritsuko Akagi lamented quietly to herself.

"Did you say anything?" he inquired and turned away from the silver screen abuzz with colour and life.

"It's nothing, really," was her quick reply.

Who would have thought the commander had embezzled building funds to build a private hidden movie theatre inside the labyrinthine Geofront.

Ritsuko really wished they had watched something like "The Monogamous Seven Tentacle Demons Versus the Fertility Cult of Man-starved Nymphs from Dimension W", but no – they just had to sit there among the rows of empty seats and watch old Hammer Horror movies that Gendo enjoyed watching again and again. This time he was watching "The Gorgon" again.

There were probably a lot of things she never should have done like bleaching her hair and dying it blonde as a sign of rebellion; becoming involved with the widowed commander several years her senior was probably the worst thing on her list right now.

Sighing over her predicament she proceeded to remove the bandages covering her head. It still ached a bit actually unless she resorted to painkillers; same thing counted for her back. As for the commander beside her he was underneath his Nerv uniform covered in band-aids and bandages due to the courtesy of a plague of cats. As for his face the scratches there appeared to heal swiftly since there were only a handful of band-aids plastered around it while the alcohol antiseptic had prevented infections. She had in fact personally been the one in charge of taking care of the commander after having whacked away the swarm of cats swarming him with a mop and leaving the Section Two to clean up the mess currently leaping and running around the office while she dragged the commander to safety.

"Can we burn it down?" Elise asked eagerly, with her eyes as usual concealed by sunglasses like the rest of the generic Section Twos and a sardonic smile as usual.

"No!" Dr. Akagi told the Section Two Agent strictly.

Returning back to the present from the reminiscence of preventing Section Twos displaying pyromaniac tendencies to burn down places like for example an office filled with wild cats, she noted again that the commander was wearing a new pair of glasses since there hadn't been much to salvage from the remains of the previous ones after the cat attack.

"I have a feeling that the entertainment provided for lately is not up to your standards," the commander noted matter-of-factly without even taking his eyes away from the screen.

"No, whatever gave you that idea?" Ritsuko tried lying straight.

The commander made his usual pose, and Ritsuko Akagi had the feeling that he was smiling in amusement when he said: "You're still a novice compared to me, doctor."

Ritsuko got the feeling of having a lump in her throat.

"What?" The commander asked. "It's not as if I'm going to murder you in cold blood for being bored or dissatisfied, my dear doctor." He still didn't take his eyes of the screen, much to her irritation.

(Okay, Ritsuko! Breathe deeply and answer the man! It's not as if he's going to tape you to the sole of Eva 00 and ask Rei to go out for a walk and do some ballet lessons near all those fresh craters!)

"To be sincere, commander," she began truthfully, "it appears that our taste in entertainment seems to be the polar opposite of each other."

"At least you're honest here," Gendo snorted while slowly removing a band-aid. "But to be honest you've got to improve yourself. You might fool the major and others, but agent Kaji and myself are on a different level in rough comparison."

"You aren't pulling any punches," Ritsuko commented sourly.

"Maybe you were a master in the subtle art of deception in the past until you met me; and it seems my experience outranks that of yours."

"And what is this alternative you are considering instead of watching horror stories?" Ritsuko said in order to sideline the lecture on deceit.

"Do you like the opera?" Gendo Ikari asked simply.

* * *

"Brave Sir Robin ran away... Bravely ran away, away... When danger reared it's ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled.... Yes brave Sir Robin turned about and gallantly he chickened out...Bravely taking to his feet he beat a very brave retreat... Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin..." Shinji sang quietly to himself. He decided to take the easy way out by simply running away and hiding somewhere until this day of unmentionable horror was over, and then hide some more to escape the aftermath of Asuka's wrath for not letting himself being dragged off to the school ball.

Tip-toeing to the door leading out of Misato's apartment with a backpack containing his walkman and a dozen cassettes, he swiftly put on his shoes.

As the door automatically opened he discovered that someone wasn't keen on him taking flight.

"Now, now, Shinji! We can't have you escaping, can we?" Major Misato Katsuragi chastised him in a sing-song, honey-flavoured, mocking voice while waving her bandaged hand around for emphasis.

"Was? Versuchts du zu fliehen, du verdammter Mistkerl?" He felt the stare of two angry blue eyes pierce his back like a well-sharpened javelin. "Das könnte dir so passen!"

(Help!) was the thought running around in his head like a man setting his hair on fire and discovering that it's not a good idea.

He tried rushing past the major, who nonchalantly tripped him while still displaying an innocent look and whistling a drinking song.

A familiar pair of hands gripped him by his ankles and dragged him back into the apartment while he was crying out and made futile attempts by clawing himself to the floor. As said earlier it was pretty futile which he realized after the door was closed.

* * *

The Tokyo 3 opera house was impressive, she noted that it was of a neo-Gothic style (she would have preferred another one) and was even capable of sinking into the ground during Angel attacks. Well if the commander was one of the main patrons, she could imagine with precision that this was his doing (not too mention the choice in architectural style).

She had been surprised over the commander's ability of self-control when he arrived at her place to pick her up. The reason had been that her grandmother had thrown a fit over her cats again, and sent them back to her place after they had climbed up the curtains, broken the cheap vase grandfather had given her on their anniversary and clawed up a piece of furniture here and there. A logical deduction therefore was: wait a long time before asking grandmother to watch her cats - since she had shipped them back in a small cardboard box with only a few breathing holes in them and scores of strong duct tape and even chains and a padlock around it. And being stuck with them again meant that they would sooner or later encounter the commander; which they did, and the surprising discovery that nothing happened after that..

"It's a wonder you've not gotten any phobia against cats, when you consider what happened early," remarked Ritsuko.

"I've experienced worse," he said bluntly, shrugging it off as if it was nothing."And they were nice enough not to claw my face to pieces or any of my clothes."

They had dressed neatly for the occasion, despite sporting signs of injuries as the result of the works of an unknown assailant with an agenda currently mysterious to them both. Dr. Ritsuko Akagi had clad herself in a red ball gown and wore black elbow-length opera gloves on her arms and had draped an opera cloak over her shoulders. Since she had to dress nicely she had also stuck a rose in her hair; thankfully she had the foresight to clip the thorns of the stalk. Commander Gendo Ikari wore a conservative, but classy enough black tuxedo without any gaudery whatsoever, and still wore his usual pair of gloves and new glasses.

A while earlier he had arrived in his modest car… accompanied by a motorcade of well-dressed and armed Section Two agents in their own more fancier vehicles. The drive to the opera house had proceeded without any trouble, except for the car that raced past them while being pursued by police cars.

* * *

The streets and buildings of Tokyo 3 were lit alive with electrical lights all around it, pushing away the darkness of the night.

_Like Steve McQueen... All I need's a fast machine... _was what was coming from Ryoji Kaji's radio as he took his new car for a joyride. A modified old Dodge Charger with a new supercharger sticking out from the car front. Intentionally painted intimidatingly jet black and sporting a human skull replica stuck on the front as well as a tacky form of decoration.

Kaji decided to sing along with Sheryl Crow. "_You'll never catch me tonight..._"

Considering the high probability that the world was going to end in about weeks or months, he decided he could indulge himself in some expensive eccentricities before kicking the bucket like the rest of humanity. At least it seemed a lot healthier than participating in all those orgies he'd been invited to by colleagues from his other job than the ones from Nerv.

"Care for another wild ride?" he said to his fellow passenger, ignoring the sirens of the police interceptors hot on their tail.

"Wark! Wark! Wark!" Pen Pen nodded in agreement and then opened the side door windows and picked up the box of sharp nails under his seat, an impressive feat considering that he had flippers instead of hands.

"If that doesn't work, use the bucket of paint," Kaji quipped with a smile. "And didn't we pass the commander and some the guys from Section Two a few blocks ago?"

* * *

The were a lot of things Shinji Rokubungi Ikari would rather do tonight – like for instance reading the Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole or a pile of self-help books for all of his mental problems. And here he was stuck at the school ball with Ms. Totally Impossible 2015. Speaking about Ms. Totally Impossible 2015 a.k.a. Asuka Sohryu Langley, she was dressed rather neatly, even he had to admit that, in a black ball gown and a modest assortment of jewellery that made her look like an alluring gothic fairytale princess. At least the formal suit Misato and Asuka had stuck him in wasn't something he would rate as a first-rate second-rate clown suit like the ones he could see other boys his age wore here.

(Can't someone please put me out of my misery! **Now!**) he thought self-pitingly. He had to get out of this nightmare scenario!

Asuka was wearing one of her proud smiles again as she entered the gymnasium that had been turned into an impromptu ballroom with him in tow. At least he noted that the place had been really cleaned up and that the decorations weren't that tacky, just simple but touching.

How come Misato decided to come along was a mystery to Shinji, deciding just to shrug it off with that she was who she was: a beer-guzzling slob with some redeeming qualities. Not that he was any better in that department. Said major was also wearing a dress similar to the one she wore to impress him when she came to pick him up (she should have come sooner, considering the 3rd Angel showed up and all, and that was the start of him almost getting killed all the time), only much prettier than the last one it seemed.

Still he had the feeling of being involuntarily (as always) pictured in that Victorian Age cartoon picture the Arsenic Waltz when looking in Asuka's direction, despite her beauty and because of her "personality". Living with her was like being stuck in Arkham Asylum. Living with her and the major was twice the trouble.

"Lass uns tanzen," Asuka said sweetly to him, even though he knew that it was an ultimatum from her. He sighed in defeat and complied.

(Here we go again with the slapping,) Shinji thought in resignation. At least listening to the waltz Frühlingsstimmen by Johann Strauss II playing around them helped remedy some of his melancholic mood.

"Remember: Do the steps properly and keep your hands where they're supposed to be." Asuka told him with a firmness of a very beautiful taskmaster holding a cat o' nine tails behind her back.

Some of the other boys clearly had the "I'm glad I'm not your shoes" look as the pair began to dance.

* * *

In a privet opera box in the Tokyo 3 opera house two figures were watching the beginning act.

Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi was what commander Gendo Ikari had wanted to see tonight as alternative entertainment.

"To be honest, my good doctor, this opera has always fascinated me," the commander confided to her while still not looking away from the scene and still having that pose he usually had when sitting.

"Is it because you identify yourself with the play or characters from the play?" Ritsuko inquired.

"A reasonable deduction, even though it may appear sentimental on my part." he answered only partly.

"The Duke?" The guess Ritsuko made had some logic in choice when it came to the commander. Sometimes she felt that the famous musical piece La donna è mobile from this opera fit the commander and the women in their relationships with him, with her, unfortunately, being one of those women.

"No, actually it is in Rigoletto the jester himself that I see a reflection of myself. But I must add that I could see the reason for your answer."

If the discovery surprised her, she didn't show it.

"I see," was all she simply answered to that.

"My departed wife never liked opera, frankly," Gendo noted simply in what Ritsuko interpreted as a deliberate ploy to further a discussion. "In fact I think she had some kind of aversion to it when considering her reactions every time I tried to persuade her to accompany me and all those excuses she made. It was almost as bad as when she threw away my collection of Misfits records."

"Would you be annoyed if I just said 'I see.' again?" she asked while trying to watch the play.

"No, not really." Gendo just shrugged with his shoulders and took his usual desk pose while observing the scene. Ritsuko wondered if he was smiling while his hands concealed his mouth like he used to when things went his way. "By the way" he added, "you are getting better at concealing and controlling your emotions in situations when there isn't any stress."

(What in the world did I get myself into?) the scientist mentally groaned. But she had to admit that she was impressed by the performance and quality of the actors and orchestra.

* * *

Well… dancing with She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed wasn't that unpleasant… almost. As long as he kept his wits and remained somewhat semi-calm in order to dance properly he might just survive the night to live another day, until his entry plug became his cylindrical metal coffin that is; and it seemed to have a high probability. He was once boiled alive while experiencing how it felt to have an energy beam piercing your chest and other unpleasant stuff after all.

"Gut, Shinji" Asuka praised him with a content smile.

(Just keep on smiling,) Shinji told himself, having a strain to uphold the smile he had forced on his face in order to make things appear all nice and shiny on the surface for his personal safety and everyone else here who didn't know the true Asuka Sohryu Langley under the facade and behind her graceful mask like he did. He was reminded by the famous quote from a poem by the poet John Keats when gazing at Asuka.

_I saw pale kings, and princes too,  
Pale warriors, death pale were they all;  
They cried—"La belle dame sans merci  
Hath thee in thrall!" _

Escape was clearly the first priority for the night as well as getting sleep and forget that this ever took place through mental induction of self-denial. He thought he would manage to make a clean getaway during the time they had their breaks, the problem however was that Asuka was always watching him like a hawk, even standing guard outside the door leading to the boys' toilets to hamper any attempts of flight. He wished that this day was only a nightmarish hallucination created by a fevered mind, but alas this nightmare was one hundred percent real.

He had to come up with a plan.

As he took the time to observe his surroundings he witnessed Kensuke Aida with a look of bliss on his face as he trained his video camera on Misato who was chatting, flashing smiles and laughing along with a band of teachers and enjoying her ability to attract people. Was it just him or was the focusing lens zooming in on Misato's chest? Then Touji Suzuhara snatched the camera away despite Kensuke look and cries of protest and did the same thing his friend had done earlier, albeit with his tongue hanging out over the sensual optical view. It seemed the teachers were on guard when it came to the infamous punch bowls and had stationed at least two people to guard the tables where they were. Maybe it had something to do with the incident that took place in another school four years ago when a deranged student with a love for chemistry had singlehandedly acted on his own initiative and poured various homemade concoctions into the punch bowls with the only motive that he was curious about what would happen. Several of the drinkers' skin turned purple, while others, boys and girls, men and women experienced accelerated hair growth on both head and face (not a nice sight if you aren't into bearded women) while others ended up hospitalized for a few days. As the perpetrator of this act of infamy was after exposure carted away to the nearest asylum wearing a straitjacket he said: "Now that's funny!" between chokes of hysterical, insane laughter.

Shinji noted that like him both Touji and Kensuke were dressed for the occasion, even if their usual behaviour when it came to beautiful girls and women made them seem a bit out of place. He had been forced to wear a formal black suit tuxedo, a bow tie and a pair of matching black leather shoes after Asuka and Misato discovered no formal clothes and footwear in his closet (he had of course gotten rid of them with the help of one of the handy incinerators inside of Geofront) and had resorted to buying some. Kensuke wore a grey one in contrast to what he wore, but with a purple tie and brown leather shoes instead. Touji wore a white dinner jacket over the rest of his black formal clothes and black leather shoes and a bow tie.

(I've got the impression that they seem to fit in here better than me,) Shinji thought enviously, wishing that he had the same cheer the two did.

It took one or two minutes of bickering before the two noticed Shinji looking at them and then decided to take their eyes off the visage of the alluring major and walked over to where he stood with smiles of bliss over what they had beheld.

"Hey, Shinji!" Touji greeted, "Nice night, huh?"

"I guess so." Shinji answered weakly. His friends seemed oblivious to the bitter tone in his voice.

"Man, Shinji, I can't believe there are so many hotties here! I'm in heaven!" Kensuke cheered having retrieved his video camera and now watched a replayed footage with a tearful smile of joy.

"I'll be taking that," a scolding voice with a tinge of authority spoke. Hikari Horaki strode behind the two boys and snatched the video camera away from Kensuke. "Seriously can't you do anything except goofing off?" She uttered with an irritated frown on her face.

Shinji saw that the class representative was wearing a white ball gown with matching elbow-length gloves and instead of her usual pigtails she wore her hair in a bun. She looked nice despite not having Asuka's more beautiful and alluring countenance. But then again Asuka didn't have any freckles, like the class rep did and it did seem that he he had a thing for freckles.

"Hey, give that back!" Kensuke protested.

"When I'm finished seeing if there's any inappropriate material here that needs to be deleted, I will consider returning your currently confiscated camera." She waved him off and browsed critically at one video where there seemed to be a lot focusing on cleavage and uttered a small hiss of disgust.

"Nice going, Hikari," Asuka congratulated her friend with a content grin since she was equally annoyed with the duo's antics, and the fact that she didn't seem to like them very much.

"Good evening, class representative," Shinji greeted. "Is anything the matter?"

"Why, thank you, Ikari." she responded with a polite smile. "Those two are the problem!" Hikari pointed out bluntly as a sledgehammer hitting an anvil and turned her head in the direction of Touji and Kensuke who tried but failed to act innocent.

"Aww, can't ya learn to take things easy for a second!" Touji protested to her with a sulking look.

"With you acting like that I'm afraid it's impossible." Hikari glared at Touji and Kensuke menacingly after taking a swift peek at another video.

"I agree with Miss Horaki." Shinji admitted somewhat reluctantly while feeling embarrassed over his sudden, quiet intrusion, "You- or we could find something else to do."

"Why are you taking her side?" Touji looked crossed at him accusingly.

Shinji was silent for a minute. He knew he wasn't of the confronting type and that his way was to shy away from conflict and confrontations whenever he could.

"Why are you getting so worked up over this?" Shinji decided to try to divert his friend's question by coming with a counter-question.

"Man!" Touji sighed in disappointment. "Can't you see that it's natural for men to do this? Are you sure that you're a man?"

"What's that got to do with it?" Shinji had a quizzical look on his face, wondering if all those h-games and h-related doujinshi had finally taken its toll on Touji's perception of reality, but then reconsidered that both Touji and Kensuke had been that way before he even met them. (Seems like more natural for irresponsible boys if you ask me.) Was Shinji's dry afterthought.

Asuka ignored Shinji for the time being and instead turned her attention towards the other two boys, giving them a look that probably would have made flowers wilt or spontaneously combust.

"Stupid and perverted as always, I see." Asuka snarled prettily with traces of clear venom in her intonation."Kannst du und Kensuke nicht an etwas anderes denken oder ist es nicht möglich?"

(Here we go again...) Shinji sighed mentally with a defeated look. (At least I'm not on the receiving end for the moment.)

"Speak, Japanese, you red devil!" Touji growled back at her, teeth showing.

"I'm from Germany, verdammter Dummkopf!" Asuka corrected him haughtily with a smile.

"If you've got eyes at all you'd clearly see that we're in Japan right now!"

"Was hast du gesagt!" Asuka's right eye twitched as she growled in retaliation.

"You heard me or have you gone deaf as well?" Touji barked back.

Abruptly Hikari had placed herself between the two in order to attempt to calm things down. "Will you just quit it!" her voice had a tinge of threatening growing anger despite trying to retain the behaviour of level-headed authority as class representative.

Shinji had for the moment decided to stay safely in the background and placed himself near Kensuke who was thoughtfully considering snatching his video camera back while the arguing went on.

"He started it!" Asuka complained to her best (and only) friend in Tokyo 3.

"I know, Asuka," Hikari tried to explain to her understandingly. "but it doesn't mean that you should have things descend to a shouting match tonight.

"Which side are you on!" Touji exclaimed accusingly.

Before things got more heated Shinji saw on Kensuke's face the clear decision of stepping in.

"I mustn't run away... I mustn't run away... I mustn't run away..." Shinji quietly started whimpering his old mantra as Kensuke was about to take a step forward, not sensing his friend's repetition of this strange phrase he used so many times out of habit.

"Hey, what about we make a bet?" Kensuke interrupted the three others.

"Good idea!" Touji flashed his friend a smile and was glad to having things diverted from him.

"Hah! As if I would stoop so low as to participate in a dumb bet!" Asuka declared haughtily with a smirk.

"Maybe it's because you're a scaredy cat behind all that flashy bravado?" Touji retorted.

"Was!"Asuka exclaimed angrily in German and then switched back to Japanese when she cried out: "How dare you! No one calls me a coward! Never!"

"I just did!" Touji gloated. And Shinji had to admit that he admired his friend's courage to stand up to Asuka, something which he seemed to lack and probably would for eternity.

A string of curses and swearing in German was what Touji got in return from Asuka.

"Asuka! As your friend I clearly have to advise you that such behaviour is unwarranted for." Hikari gasped out in surprise over hearing her friend's emotional outburst.

Asuka just ignored her as she seemed to turn her fury on Touji, appearing to Shinji as a beautiful raging demoness ascended from the pits of hell to collect insignificant souls who could induce both desire and dread in the hearts of men who beheld her.

Asuka just ignored her as she proceeded to glare viciously at both Touji and Kensuke. "And what, may I ask, does this so-called bet involve?"

"How is your taste?" Kensuke inquired.

"Was! What kind of a stupid question is that.?"Asuka replied with a somewhat puzzled look on her face.

"Can you determine the difference between these?" Kensuke flashed a smirk and suddenly presented two different soda cans and waved them in front of her face.

"Selbstverständlich!" Asuka scoffed. "Es ist einfach."

"Can you manage it with your eyes covered?"

"Of course, you ninny!" Asuka answered with a loud voice. "And here I thought you were planning something really sick!"

"Can you handle tape?" Kensuke inquired.

"Any more stupid questions and you'll get a fist to the face!" Asuka growled.

"Okay, okay!" Kensuke looked a bit worried as he waved his hands at her in an effort to signal to her to cool down. "Just wait a second!" And off he ran to fetch whatever tape he could get his hands on.

Shinji had meanwhile decided to try to sink in the background for a while, not being fond of stressful situations like these.

(Run out of this place or stay?) he pondered; and then concluded: (I don't think running is a good idea for the time being. Either Asuka or Misato will discover that I'm gone and I'll get into a worse mess than before.) and sighed pitifully. He clearly needed to neutralize the two in some way in order to secure a getaway.

Walking over to Misato who was oblivious to his presence while still chatting with some teacher. The teacher's started laughing as Misato told them a raunchy joke which also made Shinji blush. To the boy's disappointment he couldn't see that the well-endowed major indulging herself with punch or any other alcoholic beverage making any attempt to squeal on her to her superiors futile. But as his guardian unknowingly turned her back to him, he by some minor chance of fate discovered a long, loose thread of string sticking out from the upper back of her dress.

The sinister, scheming features of a Rokubungi appeared on Shinji's face for a second

"Jeez! Poor guy! I knew he'd snap sooner or later with all that mess he goes through!" A boy dressed in a formal grey suit said to his date, dressed in a flowing green gown, who nodded in agreement and then walked over to some friends. "I think I need new glasses." he muttered.

Managing somehow to sneak up behind the major and then reaching out slowly to grasp the thread without being discovered, he went nonchalantly to the nearest table close to Misato and proceeded to tie the string to one of the legs of the table while making it seem like he was loosening and re-tying his shoelaces.

He then went back to Asuka and the others, discovering that Kensuke Aida had returned with a big roll of packaging tape.

"Where were you?" Asuka demanded to know in a very commanding voice.

"Wh-What's t-the ma..-matter?" Shinji cringed a bit in fear as he reeled back.

"When I want you to stay put – you **stay put!**" she growled as if rebuking a disobedient pet.

A few minutes later the much fuming, beautiful Asuka Sohryu Langley stood there with a band of tape covering her eyes. As expected she was in a so bad mood that she simply ignored or waved off the protests of her friend who tried to talk her out of it.

(Okay, I know that she can be oblivious to reason when she's mad; after all I live with her and have the bruises to prove it, but I didn't think that she's take up this challenge.) Shinji thought perplexedly. He then realized that the tape over her eyes also covered her eyebrows due to its size.

(Ooh, that gives me an idea!) If anyone had cared to look at Shinji they would have discovered a sinister smirk on his face again flashing for a few seconds.

"Hey, isn't that Kaji?" Shinji lied to the blindfolded young maiden by acting surprised and acted further on that lie by turning and pointing somewhere at random to make the bluff believable.

"Where?" Asuka exclaimed and ripped off the tape as if by reflex.

What followed was a booming scream of pain that echoed throughout the ballroom. All around dancing couples and people simply chatting and trying to enjoy the time here who noticed it, had their curiosity awakened and attempted to discover the source of this sudden and unexpected mystery. When they found out some of them simply shook their heads in exasperation while most of them laughed or failed to stifle their laughter. For a certain famous (or infamous if you prefer) Evangelion pilot had somehow torn off her eyebrows, which where discovered to be clinging on a long strip of packaging tape. And as her wig fell off in the process, she was left hairless and eyebrowless.

"Sorry, I was mistaken!" Shinji said straightforwardly.

Another scream from a more mature voice soon followed, and Shinji turned and saw with hidden satisfaction the jumping, shrieking silhouette of major Misato Katsuragi covering the top of her unravelled dress while some of the teachers acted embarrassed and confused while some clearly was ogling her with dirty smiles.

For some reason Shinji had a fuzzy warm feeling welling up inside, that or it could be a mental wild, shrieking ululation of ecstatic proportions. He felt like an ecstatic cultist from the Cthulhu Mythos who had done something deranged and strange like summoning an unfathomable horror from god knows where to smite his enemy.

A slap coming most certainly from Misato was heard... and with a thunderous thud a grinning, unconscious teacher crumpled to the floor with a open hand-shaped mark on his cheek.

Maybe Shinji was starting to see things, but he though he saw the most lecherous look he had ever seen on Touji and Kensuke's faces in a long time while a worried and concerned Hikari was trying to comfort her friend who was alternating between crying out in pain, cursing and ranting and raving.

"This is the best night ever!" Kensuke proclaimed, having grabbed back his video camera from the class representative, and now filming it, and zooming in the lens on questionable angles.

"Whoah! I agree there, pal!" Touji concurred a bit too eagerly while his eyes were now bulging at the exposing sight of the beautiful major.

And off the major went, followed by a cursing and shrieking Asuka who lost her wig after her accident.

(Mental note to self: remember to barricade my room when I come back if they try taking it out on me.) Shinji mused internally.

Hikari Horaki cried out for her friend to come back, but as experience had taught her earlier it was futile to make Asuka turn when she decided to run off. She then blew her cheeks in frustration and growing anger an whirled towards Touji Suzuhara and Kensuke Aida.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Touji?" the class rep exclaimed in disgust over the boy's behaviour. Somehow Shinji Rokubungi Ikari got the feeling that Horaki had hopefully expected Touji to behave himself better just for tonight, which he clearly did not to her chagrin.

"Will ya just pipe down!" Touji groaned. "Who are you? My girlfriend? I don't have to take orders from you, for Pete's sake!"Those last words seemed to affect her a lot as a look of hurt formed on the girls face.

Hikari had enough.

She picked up her skirt and dashed out of the ballroom looking as if she was going to explode like a volcano.

(Why does Touji mess things up without even trying!) Shinji thought sourly. (I'm finally rid off Asuka and all I want is just go home and sleep! Is that too much to ask for, for crying out loud?)

* * *

The blue-haired albino girl christened Rei Ayanami clearly felt that she had done the right thing not to come to such a insignificant trivial event that did not require her attendance. She was never a people person and seemed to have a cold, logical aversion to people that meant that communication and interaction were to be minimal at best; that was the way she preferred it.

Her red eyes were trying to delve into the text written on the book she was reading.

The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe seemed like an interesting short story about descent into murder and madness.

Better to spend the time reading interesting books than go out and experience whatever could happen tonight. A feeling of precognition told her that she was living in interesting times, which was no wonder due to the Evangelions and the Angels, but tonight seemed like an evening promising events that were not in least sense world-shattering or destructive on a city-scale so that it became a military operation requiring Evangelion deployment tonight. Another rationale for her declination was the Second Child who had a bad personality and attitude, **red** hair, a **red** plugsuit and not to mention a **red** Evangelion. She did have an aversion to the colour red which caused her personal repulsion and loathing. During one training session without making the least sign of expression on her face or body was for a brief moment of calm madness coolly considering training the targeting reticle of the sniper rifle Eva 00 was carrying that time onto the head of Eva 02 or a torso shot meant to pierce the body and hit the entry plug inside it with a massive tungsten round after Asuka had severely taxed her patience with one of her tirades and insistences on doing things alone when the order was clear that this was a training mission essential to honing co-operation between the Eva pilots.

It was the Third Child who had awakened the curiosity to delve into gothic fiction, when she had inquired one day in the school library why he seemed so interested in such literature. In his usual non-confrontational shy way he had tried to express and explanation for his reasons for liking such and had meekly recommended a book containing gothic short stories, gothic novels and such as a first-step delving into it. As the First Child, the first person chosen to pilot the gargantuan behemoths given the name Evangelion, that were as much a danger to the ones attempting to control them as to their foes (she had first-hand experience with it), it seemed insignificant to read such literature and instead continue to prepare for the fateful day for which purpose she was born, but it appeared that there was still plenty of time before the end, so she reasoned that there was no harm in stimulating her brain with literature while awaiting her destiny.

She did feel a tiny and minor tinge of sympathy for the Third Child, since he had been forced to accompany the Second Child tonight. She concluded she was certainly fortunate living in her lonely and shabby apartment that sometimes had power shortages, water shortages, lack of hot water and questionable drinking quality of the tap water instead of living with Asuka like Shinji did despite the quality of their living habitat; while she bore no ill will against the major she did have her critical perception of the young officer due to her alcoholism and lifestyle and seriously doubted her competence as a military officer.

Rei began humming the song Astro Zombies by the the punk band the Misfits.

* * *

If there was one thing Shinji Rokubungi Ikari deemed himself good at it was to feel sorry for himself. Not that he was the only human doing that, but personal sentiments gave the feeling that he had perfected it into an art years ago. A traumatic childhood can do wonders for a fragile and easily tainted psyche of an innocent child. And considering how he turned out, he certainly wouldn't like to discover what made Asuka turn out the way she was; bludgeoning himself to death with his cello would be preferable to that or having Eva 01 lobotomize itself with a prog knife through whatever it had that counted as a nose and become the first boy to psychically lobotomize himself while piloting something that's alive.

If he had his walkman he'd probably have fast-forwarded or rewind the chosen cassette to the point where that Billy Idol song Dancing With Myself began as a personal attempt at therapy by listening to the chosen song in order to block out all memories from this day.

But the thing bothering him the most at the moment was if he should involve himself with the mess Touji had made. His personal opinion was that it was none of his business and that the class representative was fully capable of working it out with Touji and Kensuke as she usually did in class when they got out of hand.

At least he could enjoy a quiet stroll through the empty, dark school corridors. He never did feel that he fit in when it came to formal occasions and preferred solitude over large crowds. The tranquility he felt was abruptly shattered as he heard excited voices being raised somewhere.

The discovery made was that the voices came from the janitor's closet that was pretty much a small room in itself. The door was closed, but his ears could easily tell him that there was someone behind that door.

(Someone clearly forgot their key.) Shinji noted as he spotted that the key to the door was still stuck in the keyhole while considered taking a peek by opening the door a little bit.

"I'm in heaven!" a voice easily recognizable as that of Kensuke Aida's exclaimed in joy.

"Gimme that!" the second voice that belonged to Touji Suzuhara demanded. A sound of shuffling and struggling was heard by Shinji as he guessed that his friends were having a tug of war over the video camera. So it clearly was no need to to see who it was.

Shinji never found out if Kensuke or Touji had somehow gotten hold of the key or if they had been lucky and that the janitor had forgotten to take the key with him when he left and that the two in a stroke of luck discovered that the key was still in the keyhole and all the had to do was waltz right in; but he did turn the key and pull it out of the keyhole thereby locking in the two inside who were oblivious to their predicament while they quarreled over who should gaze at the footage of Misato's well-endowed form. At least he found out that when your mind is on other things it is in fact quite easy to do things like this without the victims ever noticing before it was far too late.

"That should get them to cool down a bit." Shinji said to himself with traces of satisfaction in his voice.

After pondering for a few minutes about what to do with the key, Shinji decided on where to leave it and walked in the direction where his classroom lay. Sliding the door open he entered the classroom without switching on the light, Shinji left the janitor's key on the teacher's desk and promptly stepped out and closed the door.

After a while Shinji could hear shouting followed by sounds of someone banging at a door from the distance.

(I might as well walk home,) he thought and ventured towards the nearest exit. Taking several steps down a flight of stairs his foot stumbled into something that tumbled down the next step. A quick glance revealed the object to be a shoe. A high-heeled white shoe meant for formal occasions like dancing and such.

"You got to be kidding me!" Shinji Rokubungi Ikari uttered in disbelief as he picked it up.

His guess was that it probably belonged to some girl who had slipped away with her boyfriend to make out somewhere and that in their throes of passionate kissing and fierce embrace on the staircase the girl dropped her shoe from her foot without noticing. Or that some girl had gotten hold of some liquor and had ended up so drunk or tipsy that her shoe fell off while staggering down the stairs and back to the ballroom. That was the most plausible explanation he could come up with for the moment.

A dilemma suddenly popped up in Shinji's head: Should he try to be polite and try to give the shoe back to its owner, or should he just leave it where he found it and move on? Despite his reason arguing against acting like a meek do-gooder his conscience got the better of him in the end. Why not? He could simply leave the thing in some corner in the ballroom for someone to find and head straight home without anyone being the wiser.

Wandering in his own thoughts with the shoe in his hand, Shinji had arrived at the entry hallway where the shoe racks lay. He was about to leave when he heard the grumbling of someone. Peering past one of the shoe rack shelves he spotted the class representative Hikari Horaki. She was leaning with her back against a shelf and her arms crossed, muttering about serving Suzuhara and Aida a pair of "knuckle sandwiches" if she saw them and smashing Kensuke's camera to pieces.

He probably had passed by her earlier without noticing her presence if she had been there all along. Shinji could admit that he could be dense and mostly oblivious when wandering in his own thoughts. The class representative clearly hadn't noticed him either if they had passed earlier.

He decided to make his presence known, hoping that the class representative could help him in finding the owner of the shoe or have her deposit it somewhere until the owner came for it.

"E-...Excuse me, Miss Horaki, but could you help me with something?" Shinji requested as politely as he could. The class representative jumped up from her position in surprise.

"Ikari? You startled me!" she uttered in surprise.

"I'm s-sorry!" Shinji stammered and took a step backward. Hikari's eyes fell on what Shinji held in his hand.

"That's my shoe? Where did you find it?" the girl instantly inquired with a surprised look as the traces of anger she harboured seemed to vanish..

"On one of the stairs. How did you manage to lose it?" After the words left Shinji's mouth he felt like kicking himself in the shin for coming with a stupid question like that.

"It's kind of embarrassing, Ikari," Hikari admitted with a sigh, "I calmed down a bit and went back to take that damn video camera and discovered that those two idiots were gone. I got really angry and stampeded around trying to find them around the school. I almost had them when I heard them talking on the lower floor next to the stairs and I ran down the stairs, and then I heard them shout loudly when they heard me approaching and bolted before I reached them. After several minutes I discovered that I lost my slipper. Kind of silly, huh? Must've been while I rushed down the stairs while chasing Suzuhara and Aida."

"It must be hard chasing them wearing that." Shinji pointed out, referring clearly to the dress she wore.

"You're telling me," Hikari muttered. "If I had been wearing my school uniform I'd caught them easily like I use to and given them a piece of my mind that they'll never forget." And then began imagining giving the two, especially Touji a brutal beating. She soon calmed herself down when she saw that Shinji looked worried over the grim frown she had sported.

"I guess Touji and Kensuke can be a handful when they're at their worst." Shinji said, remembering the time they insisted strongly that he should place a hidden camera near the shower or somewhere in Misato's room in order to fully study her physical beauty and get a look of how she looked without clothes. He had to make desperate pleas and excuses to make them reconsider, knowing what would happen to him if Asuka should find out or if Misato would turn hopping mad and throttle him to death.

"Yeah, they are. But you get a little used to it after a while." she told him.

Hikari then picked up the hem of her skirt slightly as she lifted her bare foot up from the ground a little. "Would you be so kind?" she asked simply with a tiny smile.

Kneeling down hesitatingly Shinji blushed a very deep shade of red and turned his head away as he placed the shoe back on her bare foot and then staggered back with his eyes still turned away from her.

"Thank you, Ikari." the class representative said as she smoothed her dress. "You really are a nice guy, you know that."

He could see an amused expression on her face when she saw how red his face still was from blushing like there was no tomorrow.

"So what will you be doing now?" Hikari then asked, looking a bit thoughtful.

"W-well I was considering just going home." Shinji admitted bashfully.

He was a bit surprised when he saw the class representative sigh and brought a white-gloved hand to her forehead.

"With what's been going on tonight I can't say that I blame you for wanting to get back home." She said. "I hope Asuka will be okay," she then added, the last image of Asuka in her head being that of Asuka running off. Couldn't say that she acted any better earlier too considering that she stormed off for a while until she managed to collect her thoughts properly.

"What will you do, Miss Horaki?" asked Shinji.

"A part of me is considering going home, but a hunch is telling me to stay on the lookout after those two goofballs; but knowing my luck they won't show up and I'll just be standing there looking silly."

Hikari looked a bit sad when she then said: "To be honest I had been looking forward to dancing with someone, but he didn't seem interested at all."

As she stood there looking sad and lonely Shinji wondered who it was she had been wanting to spend the night with. It certainly wasn't him – he was clearly certain of that since he had his hands full with Asuka, and there were enough good-looking boys in other classes she had in mind to cross him out of the list. In the confines of his head a fierce struggle erupted: his compassionate side wanted clearly to help out the class representative while his trusted instinct for self-preservation wanted him to stay quiet and not doing anything.

"I could be your d-dance partner... if you want to?" Shinji suddenly blurted out without thinking, and when he realized what he said he gasped in shock and looked like he wanted to crawl under the closest rock and hide.

"Huh?" Hikari looked at him surprised as her mind registered what Shinji Ikari, one of the most quiet, meek and introverted boys in class 2-A, had just said. She also saw that he was as surprised over what he had said as she was and probably more.

He saw Hikari Horaki stand there pondering over the proposition. She knew that Shinji certainly was no Touji, but then again there were far worse guys to out there to pick from. Memories of Asuka's daily contradictory accusations of how perverted and weak he was and then warning her against him as if he was a strong, demented homicidal maniac went though her head... but clearly he didn't seem capable of doing anything to her as he looked and acted now contrary to the tirades Asuka could let flow from her lips in what could be interpreted as almost pure scorn. She could take care of herself! And the boy in front of her clearly posed no threat. Spending some time with Ikari was better than spending time sulking alone over wasted opportunities that might have been. And maybe other opportunities would come in the future.

"Why not." Hikari shrugged with a smile and walked towards him. As she passed a beam of light that shone through one of the windows, Shinji thought he saw something wonderful. For an instant as the light shone on her face, revealing her freckles and that soft smile more clearly to him, he imagined her as a fairytale princess come to life with an inner beauty that outshone the outer beauty of fairer maidens like a shining star in the night sky.

"I'm sorry if you feel that I'm imposing on you," Shinji apologized as he looked ashamed of something as she drew closer.

"There's nothing to apologize for." she insisted with a gentle look. "You're not imposing on me at all."

"Sorry," Shinji started fussing in slight panic as his face turned a shade of red again in what looked like shame.

"Just relax, Ikari, okay," she tried to reassure him. As she saw him calm down she let out the question she felt inclined to withhold until he seemed to relax. "Are you having any second thoughts?"

A part of him wanted to say yes, feeling that it went against something, an abnormality or a paradox that shouldn't be in this reality.. and that she clearly had hoped to spend time with someone tonight. But also it seemed that the one she had fancied either hadn't come or had rejected her advances, and somewhere in his heart he wanted at least to help lift the sadness from this girl.

(I'll probably hate myself in the morning for this, but what the heck! I might as well enjoy this...) Shinji thought.

"N-No, I'm not," Shinji managed to finally reply. "I just hope that I won't mess up."

Hikari chuckled a bit as she saw the nervous boy muster up enough courage. "Shall we go then?" she said turning in the direction of where the students were gathered.

Shinji complied with a nod, looking shy.

"So do you think any more weird things will happen?" Hikari then pondered openly as they walked back to where the ballroom was.

"I don't think so," Shinji replied with a quiet voice.

"Then let's just have a ball and hope for the best then." she said sounding optimistic.

As they neared the entrance Shinji appeared more hesitant to enter. He then felt a white-gloved hand take hold of his and then looked up seeing Hikari Horaki's reassuring smile. A feeling of ease seemed to come from inside and a feeling of safety rarely felt.

Many couples and bystanders could only give out confused looks as the class representative of class 2-A entered the ballroom again, this time leading unexpectedly one of those least expected to be chosen as a dancing partner by her of all people. Despite looking uncomfortable by all the stares in his direction he meekly followed as she lead to where the dance floor was and many couples seemed to try to have a good time in each other's arms, trying to forget the strangeness intersecting with their lives and the monstrous, terrible things people called angels that seemed to herald destruction were they trod.

A waltz was playing as the unusual couple began dancing among the other dancers. Some observers could note that the boy looked nervous as they began, but later became more relaxed as they continued waltzing.

After some while other music was played. Some recognized it as a song by Michael Bolton.

_I see your face and I feel your heartache  
I see the trace of the tears you have cried.  
The silent sound of the hurt left unspoken  
You were strong enough to hide._

_All your life no one's ever shown you  
What it's really like to have someone to hold you _

_In the arms of love, heaven's just a heartbeat away  
I'll be your light in the dark, your shield from the storm  
Your shelter from the rain  
And in the arms of love I'll lift you above all the madness  
All of the pain  
And you'll be safe and warm here in the arms of love_

_We search this world for a little compassion  
For just one look through the eyes of a child  
For one more chance to be a believer  
While there's still a chance in time  
All your life no one there beside you  
Close your eyes and let this moment find you _

_In the arms of love, heaven's just a heartbeat away  
I'll be your light in the dark, your shield from the storm  
Your shelter from the rain  
And in the arms of love I'll lift you above all the madness  
All of the pain  
And you'll be safe and warm here in the arms of love_

_High above the world where dreams are sailing  
Far beyond the brightest shinin' star  
Where everything you've waited for is waiting_

_In these arms of love, heaven's just a heartbeat away  
I'll be your light in the dark, your shield from the storm  
Your shelter from the rain  
And in the arms of love I'll lift you above all the madness  
All of the pain  
And you'll be safe and warm here in the arms of love_

_You'll be safe and warm here in the arms of love  
I'll keep you far from harm here in the arms of love_

As the song ended it was midnight.

If people could see closely they would have seen the normally quiet and melancholic boy smile like he hadn't done in a long time and that they continued dancing as another waltz started playing...

* * *

"So what did you think of this evening?" Commander Gendo Ikari asked his companion as they exited the opera house, as always keeping that mask of seeming calm on his face.

"Frankly, commander, next time we watch that Quatermass II serial instead!" she replied simply.

"You are getting a little better in keeping a straight face, doctor." The commander noted with an amused smile that was barely noticeable.

"Sometimes I can be a fast learner." Ritsuko answered with a wry smile as she straightened a stray lock of her hair with her gloved hand.

"But you still have a far way to go," the commander stated as if evaluating a simple play.

"You sure know how to burst a lady's bubble." A sour expression appeared on her face and she was about to say more when the others came.

"I've to say that those people on stage sure know how to use their lungs and vocal chords, mes amis!" A well-known, female voice suddenly interrupted the two.

"I doubt that I and the commander consider you a friend, Elise," Ritsuko remarked sardonically to the female Section Two agent trailed by the rest of the Section Two squad assigned to guard the commander and his companion inside the opera house. Like the rest of the Section Twos, who were wearing more formal business suits than usual, she was dressed pretty well for a formal occasion, but had chosen to wear a black qipao with an ankle length skirt with slits instead of a suit and low-heeled shoes, even though she still wore the formal jacket Section Two used to wear as well as those sunglasses that Section Two never seemed to be without.

"You have maintained your assignment quite well, agent." the commander commented.

"Merci, commandant Ikari." the female Section Two replied, "It was a simple task."

As they prepared to leave, the commander suddenly stopped in his steps when he noticed something he found quite strange and out of place.

"Is that agent wearing a chef's hat on his head." Gendo Ikari asked puzzled and pointed at another Section Two agent, who looked as intimidating and businesslike like the average Section Two, but managed to spoil it by wearing a chef's hat with his formal suit and black sunglasses.

It made Ritsuko chuckle a bit. "So it seems." Her lips formed into an amused smile as she saw the commander flash her an annoyed glare.

"Don't worry about him," Elise shrugged, "that's just the way he is, pure and simple."

"It's of no consequence." Gendo stated and now seemed as if he was trying to overlook the eccentricities among certain Section Two personnel.

"Where to now?" Gendo asked as he turned to his companion.

"You can drive me home, please. I suddenly remembered that I forgot to stash away some important documents and I've got to make sure that the cats haven't turned them into confetti." Ritsuko said, dreading to come home and find her home a mess if the cats decided it would be fun to go on a rampage.

"As you wish." said Gendo as he motioned for her to accompany him to his car.

Taking his hand with one hand and picking up her skirt in the other to avoid tripping down the remaining stairs and breaking every bone in her body, Ritsuko Akagi followed him.

"But I still suggest that another night at the opera would be stimulating for the nerves." the commander interjected while they descended downwards.

The thought that still rang through her head was: (What in the world have I gotten myself into?)

* * *

_Chapter end song: "Hidden" performed by the Truth_

* * *

_In our next chapter..._

_Mission: 06_

_Operation Chameleon_

_If Shinji thought that things were bad enough he will discover it could get worse as the school plays arrive to create more mess out of his life than it usually is. _

* * *

Ugh! Why do I get the feeling this was too WAFFY that I feel like beating myself over the head 'till something breaks!.

That Bolton song was In the Arms of Love, if you didn't know it.

I wish to thank GreyWolf4 for recommending having Misato added as a chapter victim here and helping devise Asuka's mishap.


End file.
